


Undiscovered Country

by shysweetthing



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Angst, Anxiety, Anxious!Yuuri, Awkwardness, Canon Divergent, Depression, Fluff and Smut, Food Porn, Happy Ending, Humor, M/M, Phone Sex, Really in the grand scheme of things it's light angst but it's still angst, Vicchan is dead and I'm very sorry but it's canon, Yuuri is an unreliable narrator, Yuuri is really hard on himself okay, binge eating used as a form of implied self-harm, but they do actually communicate, confident!yuuri, depressed!Yuuri, let's just put phone sex in there a bunch of times okay, mild description of panic attacks, some misunderstandings, victor and yuuri switch, yes all three why are you looking at me like that?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-29
Updated: 2018-02-11
Packaged: 2018-12-21 09:47:46
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 114,319
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11941542
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shysweetthing/pseuds/shysweetthing
Summary: Yuuri wakes up in Victor’s room the night after the Sochi Grand Prix Final banquet. Did they sleep together? No. Instead, last night, Drunk Yuuri taunted Victor that he hadn’t earned the right to get in his pants…and spelled out exactly what Victor would have to do to get there.Now, Victor intends to do everything on that list…~“The conversation,” Victor says, “went something like this. You said I wasn’t getting in your pants that easily.”Victor says this in a normal tone of voice. Anyone could hear him. Yuuri looks around, but if anyone is paying attention, they’re pretending not to.“Naturally, I asked what I would have to do to get in your pants.”“Ah.” Yuuri blushes. “How embarrassing. What do you mean,naturally?Why would you ask that?”Victor tilts his head. “Because I want to get in your pants. I thought that much was obvious by now.”~Note: Yuuri is not in a great headspace post Sochi Grand Final, and this fic necesssarily touches on mental health issues so please check the tags.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hiiii so this is this fic that, um, I've been working on for a while now. It's written out (mostly) and just needs editing. Will update on Tuesday mornings unless I say otherwise.
> 
> I mention this in the summary above, but please be aware that Yuuri is not in the best of all possible places right after the Sochi Grand Prix Final. You can see it a little in this chapter; it'll be there in chapter two ESPECIALLY, but I have to be honest, the whole reason for putting Yuuri through it is to throw a lot of fluffy stuff his way eventually.
> 
> ENJOY!

Yuuri wakes from the comforting oblivion of sleep the same way he biffed his quad Salchow the day before yesterday: all at once, to splintering pain.

There is too much pain to catalog. There are the aches of muscles and the throb of bruises that usually accompany a series of spectacular falls on the ice. There’s the burn of shame and sadness, because all those spectacular falls occurred in public, at the Grand Prix final, with his idol, his family, and his entire country watching.

To top it all off, there is what feels like an elephant sitting on his head. His mouth feels dry and cottony and gross in a way that is unfortunately all too familiar.

Fuck. Apparently, last night he chose to deal with his public humiliation by drinking too much.

Just what last night’s debacle needed. Drunk Yuuri, Yuuri’s least favorite avatar of himself.

Through his eyelids—not thick enough to shield his parched eyeballs from the red sandpaper of the sun—he can detect daylight.

It’s not time for daylight. It will _never_ be time for daylight. But Drunk Yuuri was apparently not considerate enough to close his curtains last night, and so here he is—his head mashed in by elephants, his eyes assailed by a spotlight, knives in his brain, bees humming everywhere, and a quiet agony in his heart that pulses, thickly, painfully, in time to the whir of air circulating in his hotel room.

Yuuri squeezes his eyes shut even more tightly, but the pain is all inside.

The last few days wash back on a wave of despair.

His disastrous free skate—no grace, all falls and contusions. Victor Nikiforov, the man he’s spent half his life trying to impress, catching sight of him and offering him a commemorative photo as if he were a fan, not a fellow skater. ( _Really, though,_ Yuuri’s despair whispers, _was he wrong? Can Yuuri even call himself a skater after that performance?)_ The banquet that Celestino forced him to attend.

Vicchan.

Yuuri feels scraped to rawness. He twitches; his limbs are tangled in the bedsheets, and he barely contains a sob.

He contains it.

Yuuri has spent the last years skating alongside Americans. _Come on,_ they used to tell him, _let it all out, don’t bottle up your feelings inside,_ as if he were in danger of becoming some kind of increasingly pressurized soda.

He had never wanted to explain that he didn’t function the way they did. He wasn’t bottling up his feelings; he was keeping them safe in the privacy of his heart. It always feels like an intrusion every time someone asks him to share his emotions—as if they’re claiming the right to stroll into his soul and poke through his medicine cabinet, clucking judgmentally at every embarrassing thought they found.

His free skate had been intrusion enough. His private fears of abject failure should have stayed just that—private. Instead, his worst nightmare played out in public, for the entire world and his family to watch.

It had felt like a violation of some kind, as if reality itself had hacked his soul and sold the photographs of his secret fears to the tabloids.

Yuuri remembers standing on the edge of the banquet hall yesterday evening and thinking to himself that if he were a different person, a better person, he would smile and nod and introduce himself to everyone he didn’t know.

Instead, he introduced himself to the champagne. By the feel of his head, he made the acquaintance of rather a lot of it.

Stupid diversionary tactic. Now he is not only a complete failure of a skater, but he is a complete failure of a skater with a hell of a hangover. Splintered images filter through his mind in confusion, and Yuuri sighs. Apparently, he is also nursing the remnants of an extremely embarrassing alcohol-induced lust-dream starring Victor Nikiforov.

A door opens somewhere. His senses are both muffled and overloaded; it feels as if he can hear the hinges creak, make out patter of running water.

Fuck. He is going to have to get up. Pack. Talk to Celestino, try to come up with some explanation that doesn’t sound like “see you never, ha ha” because without the prize money from the Grand Prix, he can’t afford Celestino’s fees any longer, not for any of his upcoming competitions.

Reality awaits. It’s a shitty reality, but it isn’t going away.

Yuuri pries his eyelids open.

For a moment, he’s blinded by a nauseating spill of daylight. He winces and swallows, waiting for his stomach to settle and his eyes to focus—or, at least, to focus as much as they can without his glasses.

Blurry hotel room wall. Blurry white-ish blob—probably a hotel room painting that would be no more interesting if it were clear. Blurry hotel room chair, the dark material half-covered by some blurry red and white fabric draping over the top. Yuuri frowns. What’s that? Something he picked up last night? He assiduously dresses in blue, gray, and black. He doesn’t own anything in red.

He sighs and pats the bed next to him. Nothing.

Where did Drunk Yuuri leave his glasses again? He feels around on the bed, expands the search to the nightstand—

“Good,” a soft voice says. “You’re awake.”

Yuuri sits up, turning to the sound. A human-shaped lump stands at the foot of his bed.

He lets out an unholy shriek that richochets painfully, back and forth, through the iron shell of his hangover.

Reality—fuzzy and indistinct as it is—hits him the moment after, while his vocal chords are still echoing with the scream.

This room is larger than his. The window is in the wrong place. Instead of two carry-ons (one for his skating gear, the other for his clothing), there are four large suitcase-shaped blobs to the left of him.

He is definitely not in his room.

Oh, fuck. He _slept_ with someone last night.

It’s not actually the first time this has happened, although it’s been years since he woke up in a strange bed. He can’t even blame his prior partners—he holds his liquor well enough that most people don’t realize how utterly sloshed he is. All he can hope is that he can manage a quick escape and an apology…and that whoever this is has nothing to do with the skating world.

Drunk Yuuri has a lot to answer for. Yuuri winces.

The figure at the foot of the bed raises his hands. “Oh, sorry,” he says. “Did I startle you?”

Yuuri involuntarily yelps again. That voice. Not _that_ voice. Anything but that voice. “Oh my God. You’re Victor Nikiforov.”

Silence meets this pronouncement. Then…

“Did you…” There is a shaky pause. “Did you not know that?”

Yuuri hadn’t known there was anyone here at all.

“I.” He swallows, trying to gather himself together. “Did I.” Crap. He doesn’t want to know what he did, not yet. “Where…?” Damn it. Not that either. The _where_ is obvious. He’s in Victor’s room.

For some inexplicable reason, Yuuri thinks of that terrible restaurant in Detroit that he kept stealing away to these last weeks, a cheesy diner with red vinyl seats, ripped in places to show the foam underneath. The tables were fake wood; the condiment bottles plopped at one end were of dubious vintage.

This restaurant had two benefits. One, it was open at two in the morning, when Yuuri would finish his illicit evening skates. Two, it served a massive plate of hashbrowns mixed with bacon and doused in cheese—craptastic food the way only Americans can celebrate craptasticity. It had been mostly edible, especially doused in enough ketchup.

Right now, Yuuri’s words are ketchup stuck at the end of an ancient bottle. Nothing, nothing, nothing. He’s afraid that if he smacks the end too hard, his feelings will all come out in a vomitous mass.

He tries for the very basics. “Megane, doko?”

Not even the right language. Which is just as well, because if Victor understood him he’d be offended by the familiarity of that sentence.

The Victor-shaped blob at the end of the bed just looks at him. Yuuri can’t see his face, but he is about as close to an expert at Victor’s expressions as it comes. He supplies his own guess. Victor is probably looking at Yuuri now the way he looked at the one reporter who asked those stupid, invasive questions about his family a few years ago. Something like, “Who let you in here again?”

He struggles through his despair and the shards of his hangover and tries one last time. “Glasses?”

It’s not even a complete sentence. Yuuri sounds even stupider than he feels.

Victor, though, acts as if this morning greeting makes complete sense. “Oh. Yes! Sorry, I set them on the desk last night.”

Victor (oh my God, he slept with _Victor,_ he slept with _Victor Nikiforov)_ walks toward him. A few seconds later, Yuuri feels the familiar, comforting weight of his glasses in his hands. He puts them on and looks up.

Victor Nikiforov is definitely standing right next to him. He looks like he’s showered, but hasn’t shaved—there is a hint of scruff on his cheeks. He looks… Good. Hauntingly good.

“Last night.” Yuuri is going to kill himself. “Last night, did we…?”

“You don’t remember?” Victor’s mouth snaps into a frown.

Yuuri is pretty sure that he should not hope that they had crazy monkey sex. He shakes his head.

“I tried to get you to your room,” Victor says, “but I couldn’t find your coach and after about three separate tries, it was clear you didn’t remember your room number. I brought you here. Nothing, um… Nothing like that happened.”

 _Thank you, Drunk Yuuri,_ Yuuri thinks.

Then: _What the fuck, Drunk Yuuri? You slept with Annoying Aki from human anatomy, but not Victor? Your priorities need work._

“I mean,” Victor says, “you were drunk, first of all, and I wouldn’t.” He looks at Yuuri, as if he wants Yuuri to be sure of this about him. “But second, you informed me in no uncertain terms that—ah, how did you put it?” His voice changes, pitched a half-note higher, as if he’s imitating Yuuri. “‘I’m not the kind of person who lets just anyone get in my pants. It takes more than one banquet, even if you _are_ Victor Nikiforov.’”

“Oh.” Yuuri feels himself blushing fiercely. Great. So he imposed on Victor and then implied Victor wanted to have sex with him. Classic transference, Drunk Yuuri. It can’t get more embarrassing. “Well. Um. Thank you? For taking care of me?”

Yuuri tries to piece together what must have happened last night through the splinters of his hangover. He got staggeringly drunk. Celestino must have left early; Victor, being a world champion, international heartthrob, and all-around winner of the year must have appointed himself Yuuri’s keeper.

It kills Yuuri that Victor is nice on top of all his other qualities. He’s _nice._ He isn’t even tossing Yuuri out immediately, giving him time to wake up and get his hangover in gear.

It’s a crying shame that Yuuri will have to avoid Victor for the rest of his life out of sheer embarrassment.

But Victor just smiles softly at him. “I had fun.”

“You had fun? Taking care of your drunk competitor?”

“Last night,” Victor says. He sits on the bed and strangely enough, he looks almost bashful, playing with the fringed edge of a pillow, a starry expression in his eyes. “Dancing. With you. I had fun.”

“I…” Yuuri swallows as the realization starts to sink in. Those flashes of imagery that went through his mind when he woke up—of him dancing with Victor, of the pole being set up… Those weren’t from a dream. Oh, no. That would be too kind.

That had been _reality._

“Oh my God.” He sits up; the movement sends daggers through his skull. “Oh my God. I danced with you last night.”

“Mmm.”

“I _dipped_ you.”

“Yes.”

“I…” Another faint memory asserts itself. “I…practically assaulted you and demanded you come to my parent’s onsen?”

“No!”

“Oh, thank God. I’m so glad. Pretend I never mentioned thinking about, um…”

“I meant no to the assault part.” Victor smiles at him. “It’s not assault if it’s consensual.”

“Oh my God.” Yuuri buries his face in his hands. He can feel himself spiraling into a panic attack right now, his breath freezing in his lungs. He thought he was embarrassed by his Grand Prix final performance, but hell, that was just a little understandable public humiliation in front of the entire world.

This? This is a catastrophe.

“Yuuri.” He feels the bed shift as Victor sits next to him. “Yuuri. Hey. Wow. It’s okay. It’s okay.”

Yuuri focuses on Victor’s words. He focuses on his own breath, the way his therapist told him to. It’s hard, because his breath is raggedy and his throat hurts, as if he spent last night screaming. His breath _sucks._ He has to be the worst breather in the history of respiration. Breathing isn’t helping, not one bit. Victor is seeing him like this, Victor will know, Yuuri doesn’t want Victor to know _this_ about him.

Victor touches his hand, and it’s all Yuuri can do not to flinch away. Instead, he lets that spot of warmth from Victor’s fingers ground him.

“I’m not,” Yuuri says stupidly. “I’m not. I’m not like I was last night. I’m not…” _Confident,_ he wants to say. _Arrogant,_ he possibly means. _Sexually assured_ is the phrase that is so exactly his opposite that he can’t even whisper it, even in denial.

“Not really into me?” Victor fills in quietly.

Yuuri’s eyes pop open. “What? No. Why would I not be into you? It’s just—I’m not an idiot, you know. You’re completely out of my league.”

Victor frowns. “What do you mean, league?”

“You’re you. I’m me.”

Victor shakes his head in puzzlement. “Isn’t that how these things work? If it was just me, it would be called masturbation.”

Does Yuuri have to spell it out? Apparently, by the look on Victor’s face, he does. “I’m one of the dime-a-dozen skaters that you can find anywhere. You’ve won the Grand Prix Final five years in a row.”

Victor’s hand tenses on Yuuri’s shoulder. His jaw squares. A faint blush of red blooms on the tips of his ears. He opens his mouth, as if to say something, then snaps it shut a moment later.

“Well.” The other man sits up and pulls away. “It’s a good thing you told me how to handle this last night.”

“Um. I. What?”

“You don’t remember?” Victor raises an eyebrow. “After you told me you didn’t sleep with people you’d known for only one banquet?”

Yuuri doesn’t remember anything except little snapshots of utter embarrassment, and even those are touch and go. He shakes his head.

“Well.” Victor crosses his arms. “You, Katsuki Yuuri, gave me some advice.”

“Advice?”

Victor nods. “You told me precisely what I needed to do to—how did you put it? ah, yes—‘get in your pants.’”

Yuuri stares at him in complete horror. He can only imagine what Drunk Yuuri might have requested. The only thing that’s holding him back from telling Victor to forget it all is the faint hope, however dim, that Victor might actually _do_ those things.

_Please let me have asked for a lap dance._

The audacity of the idea—both erotic and shamefully embarrassing at the same time—is too much to handle. Yuuri shuts his eyes. “Don’t tell me. Drunk Yuuri laid out a complete blueprint.”

“Less of a blueprint,” Victor says, “more of a treasure map.”

His gaze fixes on Yuuri’s lips, and Yuuri swallows. His throat is dry; swallowing doesn’t help.

“Treasure map?”

“You know.” Victor leans in, brushes the tips of his fingers against Yuuri’s cheek. “Go left past the rocky crags.” His fingers trail down Yuuri’s neck. “Up the slope with the fir tree on your left.”

Victor’s hand skims down his collarbone, leaving behind a coruscating trail of open yearning. Every cell of Yuuri’s skin is desperate for a second touch.

It doesn’t come. Instead, Victor leans in, so close that his breath is warm against Yuuri’s jaw. His finger marks a diagonal line on Yuuri’s clavicle, and then slashes across it. “It’s the kind of treasure map where X marks the spot.”

The spot is, apparently, Yuuri. He jerks back, ending all contact.

“Metaphorically speaking, of course,” Victor says. “Literally speaking, you said—”

“That was Drunk Yuuri,” Yuuri tells Victor. “This is Sober Yuuri. Sober Yuuri really, _really_ doesn’t want to know.”

“Don’t you?” Victor looks at him—at the six-inch distance that Yuuri has created between them. His eyes narrow. “Fine. Still, it’s _my_ treasure map. You gave it to me, I _liked_ it, and I’m keeping it. But let’s just start with this one thing.”

Victor stands up and crosses the room. He takes out his wallet, of all things, and rummages through it, muttering to himself.

“There you are.” He’s addressing whatever he found, not Yuuri. He grabs an item and goes back to Yuuri. His smile glitters in a way that doesn’t seem entirely friendly. “Hold out your hand.”

Yuuri does.

Victor dumps an American nickel in his palm.

Yuuri stares blankly at the dull metal.

“Well?” Victor’s thin-lipped expression is sharp enough to cut. “You’re a dime-a-dozen skater, right? Go ahead. Produce the goods. I want six of you.”

“Um. I.”

“What’s the delay? I’m expecting a half-dozen Yuuri Katsukis,” Victor says. “Or at a minimum some kind of a rain check.”

Yuuri glares at the nickel in his hand.

“What? You can’t deliver?” Victor Nikiforov is clearly dramatic even off the ice. “Too bad. I was hoping for an entire Grand Prix final with just you and your five identical twins.”

“We wouldn’t all qualify. It was a miracle that _one_ of us did. Besides, it’s just an expression. I didn’t really mean—”

“Oh,” Victor says, and the smile that spreads across his face is even more cutting. “I understand now! What you _really_ meant was that my dating pool consists of all the _other_ four time World Champions, five time Grand Prix Final gold medalists.”

“I. But. Obviously? Someone on your level…would…” He trails off as the expression in Victor’s eyes gets a little colder.

Victor leans down. “Yuuri,” he says very slowly. “I’m gay. If I am only allowed to have serious relationships with people whose skating resumes are identical to my own, I am going to be lonely my entire life.”

“Uh.” Yuuri swallows. He hadn’t even been thinking about a _relationship_ with Victor. _Serious relationship?_ Victor is not making sense.

“There. Is. Nobody.” Victor’s finger touches Yuuri’s chest, hovering over the spot he marked with an X. “So _I_ get to decide who is worthy of my attention. Not you.”

Behind that sharply savage smile, behind those cutting words, there is the glitter of something that feels like real truth. Damn. Yuuri really must have told him something last night. His…blueprint? Treasure map? Whatever it was he laid out last night, it must have been _something_ to engage Victor’s interest this way. And that something…

If he’s won this kind of honesty from Victor, he must have given a real truth of his own. Yuuri can only imagine. His fantasies were, he thought, safely locked up in his mind. All the thousand things that he’s imagined doing with Victor Nikiforov…

He can just imagine spilling his carefully hidden yearning in a bout of drunken confession.

It’s not fair. Victor owns every inch of the territory of Yuuri; he earned it in late night masturbation sessions with Victor’s name on Yuuri’s lips. He was the reward that Yuuri held up after weeks of bruising falls. _Do this, and someday you’ll see Victor. Keep going. Keep going for Victor._ Victor has Yuuri already; did he have to get his secrets, too?

Here is Victor, a reward unearned. Here is Victor, and Yuuri has apparently handed him the keys to his heart and a treasure map to his soul. Here is Victor, looking at Yuuri with that soft gleam in his eye, like he wants to leave footprints all over the territory that Yuuri has kept to himself all these years. Yuuri is private, private, private, and he doesn’t know how to cope with this.

Nothing has changed. His hangover still splits his head like an axe. He still messed up his free skate. Vicchan is still dead and gone gone gone.

But Victor is here, looking at him, and even though this is messed up—even though Victor is going to follow Yuuri’s treasure map and—how did he put it?—get into Yuuri’s pants and unthinkingly stomp his heart to pieces, Yuuri has wanted him forever.

At some point, Victor’s definitely going to come to his senses.

He hasn’t yet.

“Have breakfast with me, then,” Yuuri says before he can think better of it, before _Victor_ can think better of it.

Victor looks at him. His eyes narrow. “Wow, Yuuri. After all that, are you asking me out on a date?”

 _No,_ Yuuri wants to say. _Just as friends! That’s all I mean._ But he knows that it’s the wrong answer. It’s not just that Victor is scowling at him, practically daring him. It’s that Yuuri doesn’t like lying, and…

And he wants Victor. He has since before he understood the idea of sexual want.

Victor thinks he’s someone else, someone brave and confident. It’s wrong to take advantage of Victor in the space of time it takes him to recover from his lapse of judgment.

But it’s _Victor._

“Yes.” He folds his arms. “I’m asking you on a date.”

Victor’s smile turns from savage to sunny in a flat millisecond. “Wonderful. I accept.”

This is the point where reality reasserts itself. Yuuri realizes that he’s wearing… Oh, God. A shirt that is not his and is a little big on him. His favorite tie, much loosened. A pair of black boxer briefs. That’s definitely it. He smells like alcohol, and his mouth tastes like ass.

“Great.” He manages a weak smile. “I should…maybe shower? And, um, acquire pants? But… Meet in the lobby in half an hour?”

“Perfect!” Victor says. “This is great. It’s exactly what the treasure map suggested.”

Yuuri doesn’t want a reminder of that damned map. He must have dumped a whole entire boatload of instructions/confessions/whatever sexual fantasy Drunk Yuuri came up with on the man.

Yuuri has had too many sexual fantasies about Victor. Literally anything could be on that list. All of his requests probably fall somewhere on the scale between embarrassing and arousing.

With his luck, they’re both.

Still. This? Yuuri frowns in confusion. “I told you to make me ask you out for breakfast?”

It doesn’t sound like something he would ask Victor for, drunk _or_ sober.

Victor nods. “Definitely. I mean, not _that_ specifically, but…definitely.”

“Um.” Yuuri gestures around. “Okay. I…should get up, but…”

“Oh.” Victor’s eyebrows rise. He looks around, locates Yuuri’s pants on the floor, and then—after a long pause, during which Yuuri clutches the sheet in front of him like a nun, feeling his cheeks flush while he imagines having to dress himself for his walk of shame in front of his idol—retreats to the bathroom.

Yuuri slips into his clothing. He slinks to the door, passing Victor, who is patting face cream from an expensive-looking tub on his cheeks, when Victor speaks.

“Wait, before you go, we should exchange numbers, don’t you think?”

“Um. You want…is this part of the treasure map again?”

“Sure,” Victor says with a grin.

Yuuri looks into Victor’s blue, blue eyes. It takes him a moment to understand what is happening. Victor Nikiforov wants his number. Victor. Nikiforov. _Victor. Nikiforov._ They’re exchanging numbers. They’re going on a date.

His head has not stopped hurting. He doesn’t care. He can break down in gibbering panic later. He’s going on a date with Victor.

“What, Yuuri?” Victor sets down his pot of expensive emolument and turns to him. “You don’t believe me?”

“No,” Yuuri says. “I completely do. It’s just that at any point up until this morning, I would have flat-out killed a man for your number. I was just taking a moment to thank myself for putting something useful on the, um. The thing. The treasure map.”

Victor’s lips twitch into a smile. “Ah, Yuuri,” he says. “We’re just getting started.”

#

Yuuri has time for a quick shower and a change of clothing (ah, God, why had he only given himself half an hour? And he brought nothing to Sochi that remotely looks like a date outfit?). He slurps a cup of bitter hotel-room-brewed coffee in tongue-burning desperation as he descends in the elevator.

“Hi!” Victor smiles at him as he approaches in the lobby.

Victor is so beautiful, with that fall of silver hair, the shine of his eyes. Yuuri tries not to melt in response. “Um. Hi.”

“You look great.”

“Ah.” Yuuri’s face flames. “You. You, too.” He’s reverting to monosyllables.

“Where are we going?” Victor asks.

“Um.” Crap. When it comes down to it, he _did_ ask Victor. “Uh. Gimme a second. I barely had time to put on pants, let alone look up a place.”

He takes out his phone.

“You could have skipped the pants,” Victor whispers.

“What?” He must have misheard.

“I said,” Victor says smoothly, “I can pick out a place. If you want. I’ve been in Sochi before.”

“Oh right. For the Olympics.”

“Yep, and also—well, never mind that. I know a little out-of-the-way place not far from here. Will that work?”

A hole in the wall. Perfect. It will fit Yuuri’s budget, and since he asked Victor out, he’s pretty sure he’s paying. “Sure.”

Victor links his arm in Yuuri’s, and they breeze out of the hotel.

Yuuri is aware that this is a date, and he should talk, because that is what people do on dates.

The Olympics gives Yuuri something to talk about—asking Victor what the Olympics was like, how it differs from other competitions. What he’s really wondering is if the pressure is worse.

It already feels worse. Before his colossal fuck-up here in Sochi, commentators in Japan were talking about Yuuri as an Olympic medal prospect in a few years, and… Well, that was a piece of tremendously overestimated national pride. No. Just… No.

Instead, Victor tells him a story about the Olympic Village running out of condoms—“not that I needed any of theirs, and really, they should know how many they run through by now!”

Yuuri tries not to blush, thinking of Victor getting laid here, and how beautiful he would have looked with his then-long hair spilling on the pillow while…

Fuck, he can’t think of that.

By the time they find the restaurant, he’s blushed twenty times. The blood vessels in his cheeks have likely fixed in a state of permanent dilation. It shouldn’t be physiologically possible, but here they are. At least Yuuri will be able to write a paper on the phenomenon.

It takes him a moment to realize that Victor’s little out-of-the-way place looks staggeringly expensive. It’s also popular—the woman up front asks them if they have a reservation.

Victor smiles at her. “No,” he says, “and I know how terribly busy you must be, but I was hoping you could squeeze us in at the last minute?”

She takes one good look at him. Her eyes widen.

“Of course, of course, Mr. Nikiforov. Welcome back.” She doesn’t mention Yuuri. She doesn’t look at Yuuri. Maybe he’s invisible.

That would be great.

They get a table in the back, right at the window, with a view of the azure waters of the Black Sea spread out before them.

They sit. They don’t actually order food; Victor directs the waitress to bring them something he calls the chef’s tasting menu. Yuuri is faintly aware that he asked Victor out on this date and so he should pay, and oh my god, he has…not even fifty thousand yen in his account, maybe four hundred American dollars? Thank god even the last place loser at the Grand Prix Final gets _something,_ or he’d be even more fucked than he is. He has four months until he can slink back home, and if he doesn’t win at Nationals this year, he has no idea how he’ll survive. He can’t ask his parents for money. He can’t.

He is quite possibly the world’s worst date. Victor is hauntingly, achingly, stupendously beautiful, and he’s graciously filling the awkward, land-mine sized gaps that Yuuri is leaving in the conversation. Yuuri has absolutely no idea what he’s doing on a date with him.

This whole idea was stupid. The waitress recognized Victor. There was that long walk over. People probably took photos. The entire internet is probably speculating as to why Victor is stooping to spend time with that loser, Yuuri Katsuki…

“What really is in this treasure map I gave you?” he asks, interrupting Victor in the middle of a story about how he and his dog came here to vacation after last season. “Honestly, the idea makes me uneasy. I shouldn’t be held to do something just because I thought it was a good idea when I was drunk.”

“No!” Victor looks at him. “Of course not! You can always say no, Yuuri. I hope you will if you’re uncomfortable.”

That would imply saying no to everything, which he suspects Victor does not want him to do. The very act of wanting things involving other people makes Yuuri uncomfortable.

“The conversation,” Victor says, “went something like this. You said I wasn’t getting in your pants that easily.”

Victor says this in a normal tone of voice. Anyone could hear him. Yuuri looks around, but if anyone is paying attention, they’re pretending not to.

“Naturally, I asked what I would have to do to get in your pants.”

“Ah.” Yuuri blushes. “How embarrassing. What do you mean, _naturally?_ Why would you ask that?”

Victor tilts his head. “Because I want to get in your pants. I thought that much was obvious by now.”

It’s not like Victor needs _help_ with that. All he has to do is pretty much exist. Exist and look at Yuuri with that expression. Although it would help matters substantially if he would also lower his voice.

“And _you_ said—” Victor’s still talking in that same normal tone of voice. It sounds extra-loud to Yuuri in the quiet restaurant, loud enough for anyone to hear. Loud enough that he can already imagine tomorrow’s tabloid headlines: _Katsuki Yuuri sexually harasses Victor Nikiforov, demands blowjobs and a strip tease._

“Nope,” Yuuri interrupts. “I changed my mind. I don’t actually want to know.”

“But—”

“Just surprise me.”

“Oh.” Victor blushes. “I can—I mean, I’d _love_ to do that.”

There’s an awkward pause. Yuuri’s mind is still stuck on all the things he must have asked Victor to do to him. He knows what he’s like when he’s drunk. His carefully constructed boundaries evaporate.

He can’t believe Victor was about to spill details of his pornographic daydreams to the entire restaurant.

“Yuuri,” Victor says, “there’s still so much we need to learn about each other.”

“Not really.”

“What? You don’t want to…?”

“No, no!” Yuuri realizes belatedly how rude he must sound. “I probably told you I was a huge fan already? I just meant…” Oh, God, he really is going to say this out loud. It’s not like he should have any sense of shame, not after having apparently given Victor a list of his sexual fantasies. Still… “Look, I’ve kind of been reading everything about you since forever. There isn’t anything more about you I _could_ know. And you already know everything interesting about me.”

“I barely know anything about you!”

“Precisely.”

Victor frowns at this, then continues. “And you barely know anything about me!”

“I know a lot about you. I know that you’re wearing million yen sunglasses and that you look really hot in blue eyeliner.” Yuuri realizes what he says as he’s saying it. He keeps going anyway, on the hope that maybe Victor won’t notice. “And while that doesn’t tell me a lot about you, I can figure some things out from that.”

Victor is frowning, though. He reaches out and touches the sunglasses that he’s tucked into his shirt pocket. “A million yen?” He pulls out the pair. “That’s, um, in rubles…”

“You don’t know how much you paid?”

Victor just brushes a finger down the earpiece. “I don’t know how much _anything_ I wear costs. Companies just send me stuff, you know. If people see me wearing it, it’s good advertising.” He frowns at the shimmering gold lenses. “I don’t even like these that much, but I’m really too cheap to buy my own when these are perfectly serviceable.”

Huh. Yuuri mulls this over. Breakfast arrives at this moment.

Or, Yuuri supposes he should say, it’s the first _course_ of breakfast, because apparently breakfast comes in courses. Two waiters simultaneously set shot glasses of creamy blue liquid in front of them, as perfectly synchronized as a pair jump. There’s a dollop of white in the glass, and the world’s tiniest leaf perches on top.

This is about as far from hashbrowns with cheese as it is possible to get on the breakfast spectrum.

“Your amuse bouche, gentlemen,” one of the waiters says. “Just a little something to tickle your palate. This is a blueberry soup with cubes of celeriac gel, topped with crème fraîche and microbasil.”

Yuuri recognizes the words _blueberry_ and _soup_.

“Your first course will be out shortly.”

Oh. Apparently this is _not_ a course. This must be something fancy like European hotel room numbers—they don’t count the first floor?

Fuck. The bill will be… So high.

Yuuri looks at the shot glass. He suspects that this is, ounce for ounce, the most expensive liquid he’s ever held.

“Bottoms up,” he says, and downs the whole thing in one go. It’s surprisingly easy on his hangover.

Victor grins. “I love it,” he says, setting down the tiny spoon he’d picked up, and oh God, Yuuri realizes belatedly he was supposed to eat it with a _spoon._ But Victor just imitates him.

“So,” Victor says, when the second course—wait, no, the _first_ course—arrives. It’s a triangle of perfectly browned French toast dotted with berries, dusted with sugar, sitting beside a square of caramelized pork belly. “How are we going to work this?”

He catches Yuuri with his mouth full. Yuuri nearly chokes trying to speak, then decides to finish chewing, then is aware that chewing seems to be taking a phenomenal amount of time and Victor is no doubt losing patience. He swallows his food too fast. It slides down this throat in a solid lump of sweet regret.

“How are we going to work what?” he manages to say, before retreating into a coughing fit.

Victor waits while Yuuri exhales his lungs into his napkin. No doubt he’s already wondering what he saw in him.

“Work this.” Victor twirls his fork to encompass the two of them. “Our relationship.”

They have a relationship? Yuuri thought that Victor was just planning to fuck him.

“You know. The long distance thing. I can hardly seduce you at Worlds if we never talk before then.” Victor gives him a playful wink.

As if it’s not enough to choke on his breakfast, Yuuri chokes on his own tongue. “Right. You have the treasure map to work through.” Fuck fuck fuck. What was he thinking?

“What’s your schedule like on a normal day? Are you going back to…Detroit, that’s where you train, right? When do you normally wake up? What do you do during the day? What do you have for breakfast?” Victor leans forward excitedly as he’s speaking.

Yuuri is already feeling overwhelmed. He hasn’t even talked about his plans with Celestino. He certainly doesn’t want to explain his uncertain future to Victor. “I… Um, I don’t know about Detroit. I’m flying back to Japan.”

“Ah, going home for a bit? To the, um, the onsen that you mentioned?”

“No, All Japan is pretty soon. That’s, um, the Japanese…” He trails off at the look of amusement in Victor’s eyes. “Right, you know what the Japanese national figure skating competition is called, since you…um…are…also a figure skater.”

He didn’t want to think of this. The weight of reality—how badly he screwed up at the Grand Prix final, the fact that if he goes home he’ll collapse in a ball and cry over his dog—is waiting to hit him.

He glosses over reality. “It would take me basically a day to fly back to Detroit, plus jet lag… It makes no sense to go there and then take another twenty-something hours to fly to Japan again ten days later. Besides, I’m finishing up at university. I did most of my courses by correspondence while I was training, but I have to get through a final set of papers and take some, um, practical exams before graduation. I need to do that in person. My university’s on Hokkaido—that’s, um, north—they were really good about working with me on travel, but it’s not easy to go home because my parent’s home is on Kyushu, and it’s kind of far away, and time…”

He worried that he wasn’t talking enough before. It was probably the right call, given the words coming out of his mouth.

“Besides, I’m pretty sure—”

No, he’s not going to mention the fact that he can’t actually pay Celestino, that even if he’d come in _third_ at the Grand Prix final, he would have barely been able to afford Celestino’s coaching fees and his tiny apartment in Detroit. He retreats to something a little less personal.

“Celestino doesn’t want anything more to do with me after my performance yesterday, so Detroit… I don’t even know if I can go back. I, um, packed most of my stuff before I came out here. I don’t really have a lot anyway. It’s getting shipped by…”

If Victor doesn’t interrupt him soon, Yuuri’s going to start spouting tracking numbers. He shuts himself up by shoving the rest of the pork belly in his mouth.

Victor is watching him. He’s probably wondering if he should even be eating something with this much sugar.

“That sounds horrible,” Victor says. “Did Celestino really tell you that? I never heard he was a jerk, but sometimes people surprise you.”

Great. Now he’s unintentionally managed to malign Celestino. “No, no! He didn’t say that. He told me, um, not to worry about it, actually. And maybe to stop beating myself up.” Yuuri rubs his forehead, but the headache doesn’t go away. “He might have said the last one something like fifty times. I don’t know, I stopped listening.”

Victor watches him.

“I’m just not expressing myself well. Hangover.”

“But—”

Time to change the subject completely. “Ha ha, my mind isn’t great right now. What did you ask me again? When do I normally wake up? Um. Usually around ten.” This is a lie, but he figures it sounds better than admitting that he’s usually up at the crack of noon.

“Ten?” Victor looks flabbergasted. “What? Seriously? No, wait, that’s—what’s the time difference—okay, fine, we can make this work.” He nods. “I can wish you a good morning right when I go to sleep. What do you do for your afternoon cross-training?”

Yuuri is not about to admit that he prepared for the Grand Prix final with an assiduous schedule of stress-eating. “Um. Ballet, I guess?”

Thankfully, there’s a pause as the next dish arrives—something the waiter announces as gravlax, whatever that is. It turns out to be the world’s thinnest slice of toast, smeared with the thinnest layer of some soft cheese with an unpronounceable name, topped with the world’s thinnest slice of smoked salmon and a single, perfect sprig of dill.

Victor scrunches his nose after they’ve taken their first bite, and comes back to this. “Ballet is hardly cross-training. It works the same muscle groups. What else?”

“And…pliometrics?’

“Same muscle groups.”

“And…I run?” He used to, in the dimly remembered fall when the possibility of qualifying for the final was a bright hope.

Victor brightens. “Great! You can come with me on my run, too. If you’re waking up at ten, you’re probably going to sleep at…” His eyes narrow. “One? Two?”

 _Four,_ Yuuri doesn’t say.

“So if I move my run to the morning, then you’ll have plenty of time to cool down and have dinner…”

He looks around, frowns at the cloth napkins. “Notebook,” he mutters. “I didn’t bring my notebook.” When the servers come in with their next course—lightly poached fish with a sunrise of sauce that is apparently colored peppers—Victor asks for paper and pen, which they don’t think is strange at all.

It takes Victor about thirty seconds to start filling in joint schedules in incredibly messy handwriting. Victor starts with his own. Apparently he gets up, practices ballet, has breakfast, goes for a run, spends three hours at the rink, eats what is undoubtedly a perfectly balanced lunch, then hits up the gym, before stretching and going home, where he watches the footage from the rink of that day’s practice while making notes for the next day. Then he goes to sleep. There is no NetFlix. There are two ten-minute blocks carved off for social media management. There isn’t any downtime of any kind.

Yuuri watches this schedule unfold with dawning horror. “Are you insane?”

“I’m a four-time world champion,” Victor says, head bent over his schedule, as he messily adds in his dinner hour. “Of course I’m insane. Were you actually expecting something different?”

Yuuri kind of had the idea that Victor sprang fully-formed and ready to win gold, from his mother’s head. Now that he thinks about it, it is kind of a stupid thought.

“You’ve never mentioned this in any of your interviews.”

“Mmm, people prefer thinking that I’m a natural genius. I just let them see what they want.” Victor slides the pen and paper across the table to Yuuri. The final course—Yuuri still can’t get over the fact that their breakfast had courses—has come. It arrives as all the other courses have—two waiters setting it down in front of them with aplomb. A porcelain egg cup with gilded edges contains a blue-green eggshell. Yuuri leans forward, examining it. The shell is not dyed; it’s blue all the way through, as if it’s the egg’s natural color.

The top of the egg is sliced off, and a little gold spoon accompanies this arrangement.

Yuuri assumes—he has some experience with food, after all —that inside the eggshell is an egg.

It is not an egg. It is apparently a custard topped with caramelized sugar and tiny red berries that he’s never heard of. It’s a perfectly balanced blend of sweet and tart and rich. An actual curl of gold foil perches on the topmost berry.

 _I know a little place near here,_ Victor said. Ha. A real hole in the wall. If Yuuri could concentrate on the food instead of his anxiety about how much the food must cost, he would weep with how good it was.

“Do you eat like this all the time?’”

“No,” Victor says with a wink. “Just when I’m trying to impress a hot date.”

So half the time then, and he _still_ looks like that.

“Are you going to fill out your schedule?” Victor gestures.

Oh. He’d hoped Victor would forget. For a brief moment, Yuuri considers putting something like his actual schedule for the last few weeks on paper for Victor Nikiforov.

_Wake up. Spend an hour freaking myself out reading social media, and skip breakfast. Go to the rink. Worry about all the ways I’m messing up. Eat lunch. Eat second lunch. Go for a half-hearted run. Get lost in my own mind; eat third lunch…_

Right. Definitely not. Yuuri knows what he _should_ be doing—something closer to Victor’s schedule, something with fewer bowls of katsudon and more cross-training.

“Um.” He looks up at Victor. “You…uh, want me to put down…everything…on my schedule? Are you, um, expecting me to, um…”

“Oh, no, nobody is as bad as me,” Victor explains earnestly. “I have to work pretty hard. Not everyone can be naturally hot like you.”

That splitting headache that he’s been ignoring? Yuuri realizes it’s not a hangover. Or, at least, it’s not _just_ a hangover. It turns out the back of his mind has been screaming _What the fuck?!_ at him on continuous repeat for the last hour. This makes no sense. None. How is _Victor_ saying these things about _Yuuri?_

Then understanding hits him with all the subtlety of a brick in a sock. If he had any doubts that he’s told Victor his most private desires, this last bit of extravagant praise seals it.

He doesn’t know how many times he’s gotten himself off to shamefully unrealistic scenarios in which Victor Nikiforov—for some reason—loses all sense and good taste and decides that he has to have Katsuki Yuuri. Yuuri has brought himself to orgasm far too many times imagining Victor whispering to him. _You’re beautiful, Yuuri. So hot, Yuuri._

He can just imagine his drunk self divulging this secret, too. _Praise me, tell me I’m beautiful, and I’ll do anything you want._

Victor’s words are meaningless. Victor would never be praising him like this on his own initiative. This is all a lie. Yuuri’s passable on his best days.

Victor reaches across the table and ruffles his hair. “It’s okay, Yuuri,” he says. “I know your true eros now. I’m going to make all your dreams come true.” His voice is low and fluid, as seductive as the slide of skates across the ice. “Soon.”

This is messed up. Yuuri can only imagine the impression that his drunk self has left on the other man. He knows all too well the kind of fantasies he’s harbored about Victor over the years. The praise, after all, was merely the beginning of his fantasies.

If Victor offers to do all of those things to him…

What is he going to say? Oh, no, Victor, don’t, please don’t, do not touch me there.

As if.

Victor’s rational, packed schedule seems like a reprimand. It reminds Yuuri of what he was like in the days back when he was working as hard as he could to inevitably not qualify for the Grand Prix final, just like he’d not qualified for the three years prior. It’s a reminder of just how badly this is all going to go. Victor is…well, _Victor_. If Yuuri has any sense, he will end this now.

Yuuri has no sense.

 _What the fuck?!_ screams the chorus in the back of his mind.

“Is something wrong?” Victor asks from the other side of the table.

Yes, something is wrong. The something is Yuuri.

“Just trying to figure out time zone differences,” he lies.

“Oh, don’t worry about that,” Victor says. “Once I program it into my phone it’ll take care of it all.”

“Oh, ha, then, good.” Yuuri applies the fakest of fake grins to his face. “Great. I’ll, um, just get right on this, then?”

He stares at the page.

“Actually, with university stuff…” If he’s going to make stuff up, he might as well make up everything. “Um, yeah. I’ll…definitely need to be getting up early. Earlier.”

Yuuri invents a six a.m. run. It’s kind of not a lie, if by six a.m., he means eleven a.m., and if by “run” he means “bagel run.” Although bagels will be a lot harder to find in Sapporo. He brackets off a tiny sliver of time for breakfast, several hours at the rink, followed by time in the gym and the ballet studio. Since Schedule Yuuri is pretending to be Actual Yuuri’s responsible twin, he adds time to study for his coming examinations.

Schedules are aspirational anyway. It’s not like he’s _actually_ lying. It’s more a case of fake it until…well, until you obviously get called on faking it. He fills in the rest of the time with things other than _play video games_ and _binge-watch reality TV shows._

Victor frowns at the paper when Yuuri passes it back. “Evening skate? Why do you have a second round on the ice? For…four hours?”

It’s the one thing on the paper that is not a lie. _I’m too anxious to fall asleep if I don’t do figures,_ Yuuri doesn’t tell him. “I’m building up my stamina,” he says, which is the first semi-plausible sounding explanation that comes to mind. “It’s less about practicing jumps and routines, and more about learning to skate well when I’m exhausted.”

“Huh.” Victor looks at this complete list of fabrications with respect. “See? I’ve already learned something new from you. This is so amazing!”

Yuuri manages not to laugh hysterically.

#

At the end of the meal, Victor slides a matte-black card to the waiter who brings their bill alongside a small selection of chocolate truffles and some fruity sugary squares that apparently need to be named in French.

Yuuri knows he shouldn’t protest—his bank account is too thin for him to drop this kind of extravagance on the remaining balance—but pride wells up on him. _Victor_ doesn’t know the decrepit state of his finances, and Yuuri would rather die than discuss them.

“Hey.” He looks at Victor, and tries his best to sound forceful. “I asked. I should pay.”

Victor’s eyebrows go up. “Those two things have nothing to do with each other.”

“It’s a rule.”

“I’ve never heard of it.”

“Um.” Yuuri scrubs his face. Forceful is not going well. “It, um, it’s a rule in America?” He’s a little fuzzy on the details of American dating; more than once, he hadn’t realized he was _on_ a date until the other guy sprung a credit card at the end and insisted on paying. “I think?”

Victor gestures. “We’re not in America. And neither of us are American.”

“Right, but—”

The smile on Victor’s face deepens. “Yuuri, the whole point of taking you here was to impress you. How am I supposed to impress you if you won’t let me spoil you?”

“I don’t know,” Yuuri says, stubbornly, stupidly taking out his wallet. “Maybe just impress me the way you normally impress me, by existing?”

For a second, Victor’s expression falters, cracking. Then the smile comes back, transformed into a blaze of delight. “Oh.” His hand goes to his lips. “I… _Yuuri.”_

Yuuri doesn’t know what he’s said to make Victor react like that. Who _wouldn’t_ be impressed by the five-time Grand Prix final winner? Especially one as extravagantly perfect as Victor Nikiforov. And that smile… He’s watched all too many of Victor’s interviews, and he’s never seen anything like it before. It’s a wash of emotion so brilliant that he finds himself biting his lip to hide his own vicarious response.

“Now you _have_ to let me get this,” Victor practically purrs. “How else will I ever make you as happy as you make me?”

Yuuri gives in. He lets Victor pay. He lets him take his hand. And when Victor stops outside the restaurant, grinning into Yuuri’s eyes, Yuuri thinks he will let him do anything. Victor licks his lips, and Yuuri’s stomach tenses. Victor opens his mouth…

“Yuuri, when does your plane leave?”

Reality drops on his head. Yuuri checks his phone. “Um…shit. Three hours from now. I have to go, I have to pack.”

“Can I come with you?”

The idea that Victor Nikiforov, of all people, wants to watch boring Yuuri do something as prosaic as shove his ordinary belongings into his common-place luggage is so bizarre that Yuuri gives in.

Victor holds his hand all the way back to the hotel, and Yuuri wonders the entire way if maybe he is still asleep. It would explain a lot.

Victor’s theme for the year is _Questions,_ and every reporter under the sun has asked him what questions he’s asking or answering. His short program is a sprightly pop song about first love; his choreography, almost sad, fits the music in a way that shouldn’t make sense, and yet does. His free program is an utter beast, four different kinds of quads, set to music that is hauntingly romantic and defiantly lonely. Half of Victor’s fans have said that his theme isn’t really questions—it’s romance, but he’s already done that, and so he’s just making it sound mysterious.

Yuuri watched him unveil the programs at Skate Canada this year. He disagrees with half of Victor’s fans. His skating raised questions in Yuuri, not answers—questions so hard to articulate that he can’t even say if they’re asking what or when or why.

He’s wondered about Victor’s questions so often since then that he _could_ be dreaming this. Occam’s razor; Victor Nikiforov would never be acting like Yuuri is the answer to every question his skating this season posed.

And yet this is not a dream. Yuuri knows this because he has dreamed about Victor Nikiforov far too often before, and if this were a dream, he would not be questioning the logic of it all. If it were a dream, there would be random time skips. He would jump from moment to moment. If this were a dream, this moment—with Victor sitting on his bed while Yuuri hastily stuffs sweaty workout gear into his carry-on—would bleed into a heated and completely inexplicable montage of Yuuri, balls deep in Victor, the pleasure of their bodies intertwining both excruciatingly too much and still too little, in the phantom way of dreams.

Instead, Victor keeps talking—something about little Yuri Plisetsky—“you know him,” Victor says happily, and for a second, Yuuri thinks that Yuri told about the bathroom encounter, until Victor says, “You know, from the dance battle,” and Yuuri nearly chokes on his tongue. He _hadn’t_ known about the dance battle at all.

That sense of unreality—of being asked to remember something that he doesn’t really remember—makes this feel even more like a dream. He knows it is not.

Victor crowds next to Yuuri in the cab to the airport. Victor twines his fingers around Yuuri’s and leans his head against Yuuri’s shoulder, sighing and cuddling closer when Yuuri puts his arm around him. It’s not a dream, Yuuri thinks, looking down at the shine of his silver hair. He can smell Victor’s shampoo, something vaguely sweet. In dreams, cuddling is never uncomfortable, and right now, the heavy weight of Victor’s head is slowly cutting off the circulation to his arm.

He doesn’t move, even as his hand dissolves into numbness, just in case this _is_ a dream, just in case he might dispel it.

The cab ride ends. Yuuri ditches his luggage with little ceremony at the check-in counter. He’s running late; there’s very little time. Victor comes with him down one hallway, and there’s the security line.

This is it. They stop.

Victor holds both of Yuuri’s hands, smiling down into his eyes. “I wish you didn’t have to go.”

“I…” Yuuri looks down, then, very shyly, up. Victor leans in as if this is an invitation. His breath is warm against Yuuri’s lips. Yuuri’s lungs freeze. It’s too much—it’s _not_ a dream, and he doesn’t understand anything that is happening. It’s tiny, but he pulls away.

For a second, Victor freezes in place. Then he steps back.

 _No,_ Yuuri thinks. _No. Don’t stop. I’m just an idiot. Ignore me. Just do it._

But it’s _his_ thought, safe in the privacy of his mind. Yuuri has the unreal sense that he’s already given too much of his emotion to Victor. This… This truth, he gets to keep.

“Okay,” Victor says, as if they’ve had a whole conversation.

He lifts a hand to Yuuri’s cheek, brushes his jawline. Yuuri shivers.

“Okay.”

It’s not okay.

“I get it,” Victor says softly. “Let me earn it, Yuuri. There’s nothing I want more.”

The shameful truth is that he has nothing to earn. There isn’t an inch of Yuuri that hasn’t yearned to be close to Victor. He’s branded as his already, from head to toe, from the expanse of his skin to the deepest eukaryotic cells of his body. He’s Victor’s down to his mitochondria.

Yuuri looks up at Victor. He can’t say this; it’s terrifying even to admit it to himself. Victor doesn’t need an _invitation._ The terrain is his. Hell, the _map_ is his, delivered already in a drunken stupor.

Once Victor realizes there’s nobody at the gates to keep him out, he’ll invade the territory of Yuuri’s heart without hesitation. Until then…

Yuuri reaches out and pulls Victor into his arms. He doesn’t think about it; he just acts. For a second, Victor is stiff, resisting the embrace; then he melts against him, his breath whispering out against Yuuri’s cheek. Yuuri squeezes him, because for now, this is a wonder. For now, Victor is here. For now, it’s almost like he’s treating Yuuri like someone he really cares about, instead of just following instructions that Yuuri has left like a trail of breadcrumbs.

For now, Yuuri is safe, and Victor hugs him back so hard that Yuuri can almost pretend that they’re in a caring relationship instead of…whatever this is.

He pulls away as people flow around them, pushing past them into the security line, but Victor grabs his hand as they part, and squeezes it.

Yuuri looks up into his eyes. That blue seems to go far, far back, like staring into Hasetsu’s ocean from a boat, straining to see the bottom. If Yuuri let himself, he could invent an entirely new set of lies to explain the look on Victor’s face.

But he can’t. He can’t. He’s already fed Victor one set of lies that he used to tell himself. He can’t let himself develop another set of stronger, more painful lies.

“I’ll text you when my plane lands,” he says.

Victor nods.

Yuuri should be reluctant to go, but it’s easy to turn away, easy to head to his plane. He’s wanted Victor for far too long. Now that his fantasies are inexplicably coming true, he’s terrified.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter will be up on September 5th around 9 AM PST.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Yuuri prepares for All Japan.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Me:** I should have warned people that the first chapter, at almost 10K, was abnormally long, and the rest of the chapters should be like 6K-8K. I hope nobody is disappointed.
> 
> **Also me** : Uh okay chapter two is 15K.

Yuuri has a minor breakdown on the plane. He asks for an airplane bottle of vodka, but the price tag gives him sticker shock. Instead, four hours in, the only alcohol he has in his system is the lingering remnants of his headache. The flight—and the layover—and the next flight—pass in a cramped, unending hangover of regret.

The spot on his chest that Victor marked with an X still burns. Yuuri’s waited so many years for Victor to notice him; why did he have shrink away, just because his idol decided he was the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow?

Yuuri is _used_ to having his territory invaded. He grew up in an onsen, in a tourist town, and he’s had all his life to watch outsiders flood in, in search of experience and memory. He knows what people want when they’re sight-seeing. They want to smile at the baths. They want to leave their footprints on the shore and purchase knick-knacks made from native rocks. They want to understand nothing of a place, take only what they need, and leave without a backwards glance.

Yuuri spent a substantial portion of his youth picking their gum wrappers out of the onsen bath filters. He knows what it’s like to be the spot marked X.

Then again, Hasetsu is exhibit A as to what happens to a town when it _stops_ being marked X.

Yuuri lands in Tokyo thirty-two hours after he hugged Victor good-bye. His hangover headache has metastasized into a dehydrated lack-of-sleep oh-god-not-another-plane headache.

He switches to his Japanese SIM card and turns on his phone; it connects to the network, and then stutters, his screen filling with notifications. Victor has left him what feels like three thousand messages.

_Hi Yuuri!_

_Welcome back to Japan!_

_Text me when you’re settled in, okay?_

_I miss you already._

The messages keep coming. Victor stayed an extra day in Sochi before flying back to St. Petersburg, a journey of a mere handful of hours. He’s documented every minute of that time. Yuuri is filled with envy by the shortness of his trip; he still has one last flight before he can sleep.

He knows his hope is stupid. He knows the relationship won’t last. He knows the inevitable end is going to hurt. But he can’t help himself from smiling as he scrolls.

Victor isn’t really interested in Yuuri as himself; he understands that much. But at least there’s a tiny part of him that managed to catch the other man’s attention. Maybe…maybe if he tries hard enough, he can turn himself into someone that Victor will actually like. All he has to do is figure out what Victor liked about him, and just…be that. Only that.

_You can’t even be what_ you _want,_ the back of his mind whispers. _Good luck trying to be what Victor desires._ He shoves this away.

It takes him a ridiculously long time to reply to Victor’s messages, mostly because Yuuri is trying to think of something clever to say. His head hurts too much. _Just landed in Tokyo. Waiting for flight to Sapporo. Nationals is there, plus university._

It’s boring, but true.

Victor sends back a rainbow string of emoji hearts. _Do you miss me as much as I miss you?_

_No,_ Yuuri texts. The residue of too many hours in the air without a chance to change clothing sticks to him. _I’m glad you’re not here. I need to brush my teeth._

_Mean,_ Victor responds. _I wouldn’t care, if I could hug you._

Yuuri stares at this, his heart thumping hard. It’s… It’s too much to take in. He can’t take it in.

He decides not to try.

_Have to shut my phone off to conserve battery power. Talk to you later._

He should be warmer, more inviting. He knows it as he hits send. Maybe he should add an emoji heart or a funny gif. Maybe he should, in some way, indicate that he has emotions. Any kind of emotion at all.

The emoji that best represents his current emotional state is the tornado, and so—after staring at the emoji keyboard for far too long, looking for something that least feels like a lie—he shuts off his phone and stares out the window until his final flight boards.

Tokyo is so close to home, and so far away. If he were getting on a different flight, one heading south…

_Vicchan…_

There’s no room for any kind of aching self-indulgence in his life. Yuuri stuffs his grief in a box and boards the final plane.

#

It is just after two in the morning when Yuuri unlocks the tiny room he rented in Sapporo. The air smells stale, and none of his boxes have arrived. There are no sheets on the bed and no soap in the bathroom. He finds the proper charger for Japan, plugs his phone into the wall, and shakes his head at another ten texts from Victor.

_It’s sad, I can’t get Makkachin from dog-jail until tomorrow!_

_Not really dog jail, it’s just the kennel, and she really likes the kennel. But it feels like dog-jail to me._

_When I got in this morning, my apartment felt so cold and lonely._

_I mean, not cold cold._

_Just cold. You know. ***cold*** Dogless cold._

Yuuri shakes his head. He can’t think about dogless cold. He’ll freeze to death.

_But welcome to Sapporo! You shouldn’t have sad texts to greet you when you arrive! What are you looking forward to now that you’re back home?_

_Something, right? I bet you’re excited!_

_Tell me!_

This effusive level of energy is almost impossible to answer.

He also has a set of texts from Phichit: _WHY AREN’T YOU HERE. I miss you already. How was the rest of Sochi? You okay?_

Yuuri can’t talk about his state unless he mentions Victor. If he mentions Victor, Phichit will want an explanation. And since Yuuri’s only explanation is ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯, that is unlikely to go over well. Anyway, by the time he sees Phichit again, Victor will probably have come to his senses.

_Sochi was Sochi,_ he tells Phichit. _Nothing that wasn’t broadcast on international TV._

He stares blearily at Victor’s newest texts. He has to send something in reply. What is he excited about?

_Excited about sleep. Bleah._ He lets the phone drop to the ground.

He rinses off, sans shampoo and soap, and discovers belatedly that no, he doesn’t have towels either. He gives up on trying to actually be civilized shortly after three a.m., and collapses damply on his bed, huddling in his hoodie.

He’s tired enough that, despite everything, he’s sucked immediately into sleep.

#

Three seconds pass.

It is probably longer than three seconds—a dim gray light filters through the single window in his room—but he’s still exhausted, so exhausted.

His phone is ringing.

Calling. Someone is calling him.

Maybe. Maybe his boxes have arrived?

He flails about in bed, falling on the floor, grabbing for his phone. He answers on the sixth ring, and blearily brings it somewhere in the vicinity of his mouth.

“Mohhh.” It’s apparently the closest his brain can come to _moshi moshi._

“Good morning, Yuuri!”

Yuuri jumps. “Oh my God. Victor.”

“Are you on your run yet?”

“Run?” He blinks hazily around the room.

“Your morning run!” Victor says cheerily. “It’s six fifteen, and your schedule says you’re supposed to be on your morning run!”

“Victor, it’s…” Yuuri swipes on his phone and checks the world clock. “It’s _midnight_ in St. Petersburg. Why are you awake?”

“I rearranged my schedule!” His enthusiasm goes off like a grenade. “We have so few things we can do together! I figured if I stayed awake, Makka and I could run with you on the treadmill.”

Yuuri stares at the phone. He’s tired and sore and annoyed, and perhaps that’s why he doesn’t take time to examine the words before they come out of his mouth. “Victor, I didn’t get to bed until three in the morning. I’m jetlagged and exhausted. Did you really think I was going for a run at six a.m. today?”

Victor just laughs brightly. “What better way to get rid of jetlag than morning sunshine?”

“Has anyone ever told you you’re really annoying?” Yuuri snaps. He realizes that he is speaking out loud to _Victor Nikiforov_ a moment too late. Shit. Shit. _Shit._ He’s been here exactly five hours and he’s already managed to fuck this up. “Uh, that is—I mean—I didn’t, that is—”

“Up until just now, everyone in the world _except_ you told me I was annoying!” Victor is still ridiculously cheerful. “Now it’s everyone. Yay!”

“I—I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have—I’m not really the most receptive person in the mornings…”

“That’s right. You shouldn’t have,” Victor chides him. “After all, I’m only doing what you told me to do.”

“I told you to wake me up at six in the morning?! There’s no way. Even Drunk Yuuri has more sense of self-preservation!”

No, wait, damn it, it makes sense. Yuuri knows exactly what Drunk Yuuri would ask for—the same things that Sober Yuuri has always wanted to know, but is far too quiet to ask about. Drunk Yuuri would definitely hit Victor up for skating tips. He’d beg the man to tell him how he trains. Of course he’s insisted that Victor work with him.

“You pretty much did,” Victor confirms. “I don’t have to be at the rink until ten tomorrow. It’s okay. Are you coming with me or not?”

“Uh… How…do we…run together? You’re kind of far away.”

“There are these things called headphones,” Victor says. “Modern ones have little microphones, too. You plug one end into your phone. You put the other end in your ear.”

“Oh my _god.”_

“Or,” Victor continues, “ _maybe_ you have bluetooth headphones, in which case—”

“ _Oh my god,_ I know how headphones work.”

“I can’t believe you didn’t know how annoying I was,” Victor says. “I thought you were my fan! Did you not listen to _any_ gossip about me? You’ll either get used to it, or you won’t. Headphones work wonders! Try them.”

#

It takes Yuuri five minutes to find his track pants, and another five minutes to attempt—and fail—to find clean socks. His mind wakes slowly; he’s barely conscious as he troops out the door.

After he starts moving, he starts to wake up. The more awake he is, the less annoying Victor seems to be. He talks about getting back to St. Petersburg, and his dog, and Yakov kicking him out of the rink earlier that night. Yuuri feels a twinge when Victor mentions his dog, but these days, he’s all twinges.

And Victor gets Yuuri to talk.

“Where are you running, Yuuri? I want to know what it looks like. It’s so boring on a treadmill.”

The sun hasn’t even risen yet, and the blanket of snow transforms the world into gray and white. Yuuri describes the little belt of park alongside the river, running through the heart of the city. There’s a few inches of snow on the ground.

“Does it snow a lot in Japan?”

“Depends where in Japan.” Yuuri feels a faint ache, as his thoughts flit to home. “I’m from Kyushu, far to the south. It snows sometimes there. Not much. Not like up here.”

He can almost feel the sea air on his face. It should _feel_ like home to be in Japan. It should feel like home to see billboards where he doesn’t have to consciously _think_ in order to read them. He doesn’t have to translate the distance markers from the nonsensical miles/feet/inches system they’d used in America into _real_ measurements. It should feel like home to pass vending machines that have an actual array of useful items in them instead of just soft drinks.

It’s not home. It’s not really home.

“Tell me about your home,” Victor says, and Yuuri realizes that he’s said the last aloud.

_Home_ is his mother’s katsudon. It’s Yuuko, who he hasn’t seen in so long that she’s probably forgotten him in favor of motherhood. It’s lying on the floor of the onsen, doing his homework while Vicchan licks his face.

His legs tangle on that thought and he almost face-plants in the slush of the trail by the river. No, he can’t think of Vicchan. He can’t.

“Home,” he says thickly. It’s been five years since he gave up home in favor of the dream of catching Victor. He’s not sure he deserves home any longer.

Home? Yuuko’s triplets learned to talk and skate in his absence. His dog is gone. Mari has broken an arm and watched it heal and then broken it again in a stupid biking accident. Home isn’t the place he left any longer. He doesn’t have a home anymore; he’s a tourist inside his own heart.

“I’m from Kyushu,” he says softly. “A little town called Hasetsu.” He doesn’t have a home, but he can play tourist with his place of origin for Victor.

So he does. He talks about the onsen that his parents run. He talks about the tourists that used to flood their little town. He doesn’t mention that there are fewer and fewer every year. He tells Victor about the three kinds of seagulls that nest in town, and describes the cherry trees that he’d lie under with his sister, waiting for a breeze to shake blossoms loose while his father slowly got drunk with his family friends. Home is unfamiliar to him, too.

“That sounds so nice,” Victor says softly, to this description. “I…”

He trails off, and Yuuri remembers all too late that sisters are a sensitive topic with Victor. Shit. He’s about to apologize, but Victor clears his throat.

“Tell me about your sister.”

“Mari is great.” Yuuri closes his eyes. “She wanted to go to the Final this year, but…” It’s too much to say that his family couldn’t afford it. “She couldn’t get off work,” he finally finishes, hoping that it’s not obvious that her employers are his parents.

“That’s too bad.”

“She came down for the NHK Trophy earlier this year. She bleached her hair blond and I didn’t even recognize her at first.”

“Yeah? Does she look like you?”

“No,” Yuuri says, “she’s pretty.”

Victor laughs. In the background, Yuuri can hear the slap of his feet against the treadmill. “Yuuri, that’s ridiculous. _You’re_ pretty. Where are you now? Almost home?”

Victor’s laughter is hot and breathy, as if he’s at the end of his endurance, and Yuuri flushes at the compliment until he realizes that it doesn’t mean anything.

Besides, it’s a good question. Where _is_ he?

Yuuri looks around. It’s been a long time since he ran—weeks, maybe—but after the first fifteen minutes of discomfort, he fell into a groove. He’s made his way to Makomanai Park, and he’s standing not fifty feet from the ice rink where All Japan will be held.

He hadn’t even realized he was running here.

The sun is rising, a blaze of pink and gold on the horizon. Yuuri can’t remember the last time he was awake for a sunrise, and despite the fact that he’s had no sleep, he’s almost grateful to be here, just to see it come up. Almost.

“Oh, I’m in a park. I’m about…” He checks his phone. “About four kilometers from…” Home, he almost says, but he doesn’t. That bare room isn’t home, either.

“Do you _always_ run like this?”

“I know, I barely got anywhere.” In peak condition, once he hits that place of perfect physical harmony where he can ignore the stinging in the bottom of his feet and his joints, he can go a lot further. The fact that he and Victor were talking through that run—as much as they could through their breathing—helped him, but he’s not even managed 5K.

He’s with _Victor Nikiforov._ Victor probably runs marathons.

“You’re amazing,” Victor says, his voice tinny in Yuuri’s tiny earbud. “Makkachin is wiped out.”

“How is Makkachin running on a treadmill?”

“Same way that humans do,” Victor says. “I taught her. When it snows here, it’s sometimes too cold for her paws. And you didn’t answer me. How are you not dying?”

Yuuri pulls out his phone and checks the time with a frown. Oh. It’s seven already. “I…dunno?” He shrugs. “I mean, it’s morning for me, and you’ve been working all day?”

“Also, you’re younger than me,” Victor says. “And you’ve never had any major injuries. But your stamina is amazing.”

Maybe it’s that Yuuri is tired. Maybe it’s that he knows, deep down, that Victor is just doing this to get Yuuri in bed, and therefore Yuuri always has that bed on his mind. Maybe it’s that he has years of practice thinking dirty thoughts about Victor. Whatever the reason, Yuuri’s mind goes somewhere very, very dirty. He suddenly has an image of him wearing out Victor in every possible way, holding his wrists as he fucks hard into him. Stamina? Yeah. When it comes to Victor, he has all the stamina in the world.

Yuuri lets out a breathy, involuntary sound, half moan, half groan.

“No, Yuuri, I didn’t mean it like that!”

Shit. He’s given himself away. Yuuri winces.

“On second thought,” Victor says, “now that I’m thinking about it, I _definitely_ meant it like that.”

Yuuri’s tired. He’s managed to fake the running thing enough to fool Victor. Maybe he can fake the confidence thing, too.

“Mean it like what?” Yuuri replies. “Me working you until you’re too tired to wake me up at six a.m.?”

It’s Victor’s turn to let out a sound. “Have pity on an old man and his dog.” A few seconds later, Yuuri’s phone vibrates in his pocket.

It’s a selfie. Victor’s standing beside the treadmill. It must be in his same building, because he’s dressed in shorts and a light shirt, cut low enough to show the line of his collarbones. His face is flushed, and he looks utterly worked. Yuuri swallows.

He’s hot, so hot. How can he be talking to Yuuri? How can they be having this oblique conversation about sex? How is this real?

And then Yuuri looks down to Victor’s knee in the photo, and the fluttering brush of lust dies away.

Yuuri’s been running, and up until now he hasn’t really noticed how utterly freezing it is. His next inhale feels like a lungful of pure ice.

Victor is not the only one in the picture. Makkachin is panting at his side, pink tongue lolling out.

She looks so much like Vicchan that it brings back all the emotions that he’s been trying to avoid. They rise so fast, so hard, that he can’t quite contain them.

He doesn’t have time for mourning. He doesn’t have space for grief. He doesn’t deserve to cry for the dog he hasn’t seen in five years. Tears claw in his chest anyway, threatening to break free.

God. He’s such an asshole. Here he is, running and flirting with Victor, and Vicchan, who actually relied on him, is gone.

“Yuuri?”

Yuuri had worked so hard, thinking that he had to make the Grand Prix final before Victor retired. Time was limited, he told himself. He’d go home to his family, to his dog, after he skated on the same ice…

Time _had_ been limited. Just not the way he thought. His breath hisses out.

No. He _can’t_ break down. He can’t break down now.

“Yuuri? Is something wrong?”

He’s in a park in the snow, a half hour from the room where he doesn’t even have blankets to wrap himself in. The man he’s wanted forever is on the phone with him, suggesting that he wants Yuuri to rail him. And instead of taking advantage of the situation, Yuuri is crying for his dog.

“No.” Yuuri takes off his glasses and swipes at his eyes. He tries to sniffle as surreptitiously as possible. But he has always been an ugly crier, and today is no exception. “No. Nothing’s wrong. Why do you ask?”

“Because it sounds like you’re crying.”

It’s cold enough outside that if he waits long enough to sniffle, his snot will freeze.

Yuuri gives in and sniffles and swipes at his eyes. “Ha ha, why would you think that?”

“Yuuri.” Victor’s voice is stern. “If I did something wrong, tell me.”

“You didn’t.” Yuuri inhales. “I just…” He searches for something. Anything. “I have really sensitive eyes. When it’s cold and windy, I tear up. I’m totally fine.”

Victor doesn’t say anything. Yuuri’s not sure that he believes him.

“Fine,” Victor eventually says. “Can I get a selfie? I sent you one.”

Fuck. Fuck. It only seems fair. They were having some kind of sex-related talk, and…dammit. He can play along. He imagines scrunching the remnants of his grief into a tight ball and shoving it deep in his chest. Then he swipes at his eyes one last time to clear up the remnants of his tears. He takes a picture, glances at it, and even without his glasses, hates everything about it. His cheeks are too puffy. His mouth looks stupid. His hair is all jagged and sweaty.

Well, it’s not like it’s possible to take _good_ pictures of himself in the first place. Whatever.

He sends it before he loses his nerve. “I know it’s not much, I’m…”

“Oh, Yuuri,” Victor says in a hushed voice. “You’re beautiful like this. I love seeing you all sweaty.”

Yuuri glances at the picture. He knows that this is a lie. He doesn’t know how he’s going to be able to respond to Victor’s sexy tone of voice.

Then Victor clicks his tongue. “Wait. Are you sure you’re not crying?”

Dammit. He should have checked the photo with his glasses on. Yuuri shuts his eyes. He doesn’t want to lie to Victor. He also doesn’t want to tell him that Victor’s picture made him think of every one of his inadequacies. If he’d done everything right, he might have deserved to take one of those happy pictures—gold medal winner and dog. Instead, he’s alone and cold.

He doesn’t want to lie.

Yuuri has never really had a boyfriend before. He’s been on dates, and he’s had one-night stands. Two-night stands. Even, in one memorable case, a twelve-night stand.

But in the end, every one of these not-boyfriends has always said the same thing about him. He’s too closed off. He’s standoffish. He holds things back.

Yuuri knows that they’ve all been right, but it doesn’t change the fact that he _is_ closed off. He _is_ aloof. He wants to hold things back, and he doesn’t let people inside his heart easily.

He can’t change who he is, _how_ he is, not even for Victor, not even knowing that this is how his relationships always manage to end even before they’ve begun.

“You _are_ crying,” Victor says, and it sounds like an accusation. “What’s going on?”

“There’s something I want to say,” Yuuri says slowly, wiping his eyes again. “But it’s in Japanese and it doesn’t translate very well.”

“I don’t mind learning new words. Especially ones that are hard to translate.”

“The words, um.” Yuuri shuts his eyes. “They’re actually not that hard to translate by themselves. They…um…”

“Now you _have_ to tell me.”

“In Japanese,” Yuuri says slowly, “I would say something like, ‘that’s a little complicated.’ And that would be enough.”

“Enough what?”

“Enough explanation. It would mean that I wanted to keep the answer to the question as solely mine, and not share it with you. It would mean that it’s something for inside me, not—” He cuts himself off, wincing at those words. They sound so offensive when put into English.

There is a long pause.

Victor is going to argue. Or he’s going to get mad. Or maybe he’s just going to hang up.

Maybe he already hung up, and the phone system hasn’t realized it yet. Maybe—

“Okay,” Victor says. “I’m guessing you won’t be following your schedule to the letter today, huh?”

The change of subject is an enormous relief. Puzzling, but a relief. Yuuri lets out a breath of air, then another. “No. I, um, have to see when my stuff is getting here. I need to go down to the university office and talk to someone about my schedule for Nationals. And I’m going to hit up the konbini on my way back to my place.”

“The what?”

“Kombini. It’s like a convenience store,” Yuuri says. “I don’t have, um. Soap. Or shampoo. And I only brought travel-sized everything else, so I’m nearly out. I should have made a list before I left.”

“Yeah,” Victor says, “Too bad some annoying guy called you at six in the morning and made you go for a run, so you couldn’t.”

Victor is joking with Yuuri. Maybe he isn’t mad about Yuuri’s refusal to talk.

Yuuri sighs. Or, more likely scenario—maybe he doesn’t actually care about Yuuri, and figures he’ll get laid either way.

“Good point,” Yuuri says. “I had almost forgotten about the annoying guy.”

“Let me be your list!” Victor offers. “I’m just heading up to my flat, and I have pencil and paper there.” He sounds hopeful. “What do you need?”

“I—that’s—this—come on, Victor. It’s one in the morning your time. It’s ridiculous for me to use a world champion, Olympic gold medalist as my shopping assistant.”

“Yes, but I’m _your_ Olympic gold medalist shopping assistant.”

If Victor had said that sentence on a purr, Yuuri would never have believed him. He would have known that it was a lie. But it’s said briskly, as if it’s a foregone conclusion on both their parts.

He can hear Victor tromping up steps; in the background, he can catch the jingle of Makkachin’s tags. Then the sound of a door, and the rustle of a jacket being removed.

“Right,” Victor says. “Soap. Shampoo. What else? Toothpaste?”

“Toothpaste,” Yuuri agrees, his head spinning.

Victor googles shopping lists for new apartments as he makes a sandwich, and Yuuri has to carefully talk him out of adding ridiculously extravagant things like air freshener and candles to the list.

It all feels a little surreal, this whole conversation. These last handful of days have felt utterly bizarre. Victor crosses things off the list when he goes to the store, and makes Yuuri send pictures of the soft drink section. (“I bought this drink in a glass bottle the last time I skated at the NHK, and I couldn’t figure out how to open it,” Victor confesses. “Yuuri, why weren’t we friends then? I needed you!”)

When Yuuri is finished shopping, he doesn’t know how to say good-bye.

“My phone is running out of battery,” he finally manages.

“Oh.” Victor pauses. “Yeah. I guess…I should go. Shower. Sleep.”

“Sure.” Yuuri swallows, searching for some thing boyfriendly to say. Pleasant dreams? Dream of me, and I’ll try not to fantasize about you too much?

“Oh, you know what?” Victor interrupts. “We should do it together!”

“Do. Um.” Yuuri’s mind goes dirty again. Is Victor asking him to bed? Does he want them to shower together on FaceTime? Yuuri’s not sure about showing his own body, but Victor’s… His throat dries. Blood drains from his head. “Do. What?”

“We should go over our footage together!” Victor says brightly. “I mean, you have to be grabbing footage for Celestino, right? We should go over what we have together!”

“I.” Yuuri bites his lip. Celestino. He hasn’t even thought of Celestino yet. “I. Um.”

“You _are_ taking footage for Celestino, right?”

He’s already refused to talk about one thing with Victor today. He doesn’t want Victor to think that he’s completely shutting him out. “Sure,” he lies. Well, now that he’s said it, it’s no longer a lie. Apparently he’s going to have to figure out how to take footage of himself in the rink.

“Great!” Victor says. “Then maybe we can start going through it with each other. This is going to be so awesome.”

Talking with Victor has been surprisingly…nice. Even with the awkward bit in the middle. _Especially_ with the awkward bit in the middle. Yuuri doesn’t know what he would have done if Victor had pressed the matter. As tourists go, he’s been the good kind. Less gum-wrapper-in-the-onsen-filter, more don’t-flirt-with-that-cute-boy-staying-at-the-ryokan-because-he’s-leaving-in-three-days.

It’s been…nice. He liked it. He liked it too much. And now really is the time to say something boyfriend-like. “So, um…” He looks at the lightening sky. “Thanks for waking me up, and um, running with me.”

“Thanks for hanging out with me,” Victor replies.

Yuuri shuts his eyes. “Sorry about, um. Earlier. About not wanting to talk about…the thing.”

Victor lets out a long, slow breath. “Honestly, Yuuri. I was so relieved. I…probably shouldn’t admit this, but…I’m not so good at dealing with people crying in front of me? I was kind of panicking because I didn’t know what to say.”

Yuuri blinks. “Oh.”

“I mean, definitely, you should tell me anything you want to tell me!” This sounds a little less honest. “But…it’s okay. I don’t mind. I like you a lot, but we’re just getting to know each other. There’s a lot about you to learn. I don’t need to hear everything all at once, okay?”

At first, Yuuri doesn’t understand what he’s done to deserve such kindness. Then, suddenly, in a flash of disappointed inspiration, he does. “Oh.” He swallows. “Was this…did I put this in the treasure map?”

“I… Yuuri, it wasn’t, I don’t want you to think—”

“Did I put this in the treasure map?” Yuuri repeats. “Are you being nice like this because it’s in the treasure map?”

“Welllllll.” Victor draws out the syllable uncomfortably, and that’s all the answer Yuuri needs.

“I don’t want you to be nice to me just because I told you to.”

There’s a long pause.

“Okay,” Victor finally says. There’s a flintiness to his voice that Yuuri doesn’t quite understand. “I definitely won’t do that. Are we still talking tomorrow morning?”

“Um…”

“My tomorrow morning,” Victor clarifies, “your afternoon.”

“You…um…still want…after this, you still want…”

“Yeah,” Victor says. “I want. I want you a lot.”

#

There is a less exciting phone call that Yuuri makes an hour later, as he’s standing at the edge of the rink, stretching in preparation for his first session on the ice.

“Ciao ciao!” says the cheerful voice of his coach. “Yuuri, are you ready to get to work?”

Yuuri licks his lips. He should have written down what he wanted to say to Celestino; now, it’s going to slip from his mouth before he has a chance to say it. He’d thought of the perfect words, ones that wouldn’t have drawn any attention, but now he can’t remember them.

“We need to establish a schedule,” Celestino says. “You’re in Japan, but we’ve still got a few useful hours of overlap. We need to make sure we get you out of whatever headspace you were in at the Grand Prix Final, and so I’m thinking we need to draw up a plan for the next eight days—”

Perfect words are impossible. Decent words are impossible. Yuuri settles for just words. “I can’t,” Yuuri breathes. “I can’t. Celestino, I’m sorry.”

They had agreed before the Grand Prix Final that Yuuri would pay his coach on an hourly basis while he was in Japan. Yuuri can’t imagine how many hours they’ll burn through if they’re talking _daily._

The money for the Grand Prix final showed up in his account overnight—three thousand dollars. If he doesn’t do well at All Japan, that will have to last him through the end of March, if not longer. The JSF has taken care of his rink fees, and his small apartment is prepaid, but…

Food. Books. Celestino’s fees.

Even four hours of Celestino’s time will mean that he’ll have to change his phone plan if he bombs at All Japan. _That_ will mean he can’t talk to Victor except when he’s on WiFi, and… His breath is shortening. His bank account may end up breaking up this relationship before Yuuri has a chance to do it himself with his less-than-winning personality.

“Yuuri,” Celestino says, “if this is about money, you can wait until you have the prize money from All Japan—”

“It is about money.” Yuuri shuts his eyes, the corners of them stinging. He hates admitting even this much. “And, no. I can’t. I won’t. I don’t want charity, and… And there’s no guarantee that I’m going to _get_ prize money at All Japan.”

Celestino scoffs. “Of course you will.”

Yuuri’s stomach turns. He inhales through his nose and holds the breath. He can still feel the cold of the ice smashing against his hip at the Final; the resulting bruise is dark purple and horrible. But when he shuts his eyes, he doesn’t see his spectacular fall on the Salchow. He sees Vicchan, looking at him with that sad expression in his eyes, wondering when he will come home.

His dog’s death hurts more now than it did the day Mari told him. How can it hurt more? Isn’t time supposed to help?

Celestino is still delivering a pep talk. “Who is going to beat you at All Japan?”

Who is going to beat Yuuri? The person who _always_ beats Yuuri when competitions most matter: Yuuri.

He swallows. “I’m—Celestino, I’m…” _Not in a good place,_ he could say. He shuts his eyes. “It’s… It’s a little complicated.”

“Well, work with me. What’s complicated about it?”

He hasn’t told Celestino what those words are supposed to mean, and thinking of how Victor handled it earlier is a little painful.

He doesn’t wait for Celestino to argue. His original plan had been to sound confident—he can’t remember the words, but he remembers that much—and so he tries his best to do so now.

“I’ve made up my mind,” he says. “We’ll talk for three hours total. Two hours during the competition. And I’ll film myself two days before All Japan, and we can go over the footage for an hour then.”

“Yuuri.” Celestino sounds a little annoyed.

“It’s what I can do.”

There’s a long pause. Celestino sighs. “Yuuri. You…”

“I’ll be fine,” Yuuri lies.

“I’m agreeing to this,” Celestino says, “because it’s only eight days away, and because we don’t need you worrying about anything besides skating right now. We’ve trained together long enough, and you know what to do to prepare. I know you’re going to win, even without my help. You just need to know that, too. I’ll talk to you after you win All Japan, and we’ll set up a reasonable coaching schedule when it won’t make you more nervous than you need to be.”

Yuuri hates that Celestino thinks that about him. Most of all, Yuuri hates that he’s right.

#

“Okay, then, let’s start with you.”

Yuuri is curled up on his bed, his laptop in front of him and FaceTime running on his phone. He’s uploaded videos of himself to a shared DropBox folder, and he’s downloaded Victor’s contribution.

He’s not anxious about Victor watching his practice session; he’s despairing.

In one real sense, Yuuri is glad that Victor has made him do this. If he didn’t know that Victor was going to expect footage, he wouldn’t have gone to the rink at all yesterday, and he knows he needs the practice.

In another sense, Yuuri has no desire to listen to Victor rip his jumps to pieces. He knows he’s not very good in comparison to Victor.

“I was thinking…” He swallows. “I was thinking that today we could concentrate on my quad Salchow.” It’s what he messed up the worst at the Grand Prix Final, and he figures any advice that he can get on it will be great, even if Victor loses respect for him.

“Okay,” Victor says. “Where is it in the video?”

“The first one’s at 9:15.”

Victor hums as he watches. “Not bad.”

Not bad. _Ha._ Yuuri can think of a hundred things he did wrong on that jump. There’s the slightest wobble on the landing, and while he was able to save himself from two-footing the landing, his take-off still needs work. He wrinkles his nose.

“Quad salchow again, at 11:17.” Yuuri advances his film.

“Oh,” Victor says again, “that looks great.”

That one _had_ been okay.

“14:33.”

Victor watches this, too. “Good save,” he says cryptically, in response to Yuuri taking off at an awkward angle and barely managing to avoid gracelessly impaling the ice on the landing.

“16:17.”

“Huh,” Victor says, as Yuuri spills embarrassingly on the ice. “Yeah, that…could have been better.”

“Disaster,” Yuuri mutters. “Let’s move on. The next one is at 19:12.”

“Wait, before we go there,” Victor says, “let’s just look at the ones you did wrong first, not the ones you’re landing properly. When’s the next one you fell on?”

“Ahhh…” Yuuri swallows. “I. Um. I didn’t?”

“You didn’t fall. After this one, you landed them all.”

“Yes?”

“How many times did you practice the Salchow today?”

“Thirteen?”

“And you didn’t fall. Huh.” On the tiny phone screen to his right, Victor is frowning. “Okay, I’ll bite. How unusual is this?”

“I can land it most of the time in practice,” Yuuri says quietly. “I just can’t in competition.”

“Why?”

“I guess… I just lack confidence.”

Victor nods. “Okay. Then I guess we need to get you some confidence. You’re actually really consistent in practice.”

Celestino has said this innumerable times. Yuuri knows that he’s never going to be confident the way Victor is confident. It’s a catch-22—he can’t win until he becomes more confident, but he’s not going to be more confident until he wins. If he were good at being confident, he wouldn’t be such a loser. Yuuri sighs. “Sure. Just…let me know what store they’re selling confidence at and I’ll pick it up after practice tomorrow.”

“Yuuri…”

“Maybe they don’t sell it in Japan.”

_“Yuuri.”_

Yuuri shuts his eyes. _Praise me, tell me I can be beautiful._ He knows he’s told Victor these words. There is no confidence to be found in anything Victor says.

When he shuts his eyes, he doesn’t _see_ himself falling on the ice. He _feels_ himself falling—knowing in the second he takes off that he’s leaning too far, that his air position is all wrong, trying desperately to make the rotations to get the points.

He sighs. “Can we… Just not? Please? Let’s talk about what you’re doing.”

Victor doesn’t say anything for a moment, and Yuuri can imagine his calculation—the annoyance of dealing with Yuuri _now_ balanced against the pleasure he’ll get from fucking him _eventually_.

He knows it’s not a calculation that comes out in his favor.

“Fine,” Victor finally says. “I’ve been working on my loop.”

“Quad loop?” Despite everything, the fanboy in Yuuri wakes up, and he leans forward. “I _knew_ you had to be working on it! Do you have it? Are you going to ratify it at worlds?”

Victor looks at him through the phone interface. The corner of his lip twitches up. “Not if I can’t land it consistently, I won’t. I’m only at about thirty percent right now. I’m falling more than you did.”

“But it’s a _quad loop_. I’m just messing up a stupid quad Sow—”

“Shh.” Victor touches a finger to his lips. “I won’t tell if you won’t tell. Let’s start at 11:15.”

Yuuri watches the footage of Victor.

He’s so sexy it hurts. His dark pants hug his ass, tight and perfect, and it’s so hard to focus on his skating instead of his butt. He wears a band around his wrist, fuzzy like a sweatband, striped in all colors of the rainbow. He _always_ wears that rainbow wrist band in training.

Yuuri remembers when he first started wearing it.

“Victor,” a reporter asked him, “is this your way of coming out?”

“I didn’t realize I was _in,”_ Victor had laughed, winking at the camera.

It’s a good thing that YouTube doesn’t wear out the way old videotapes did, because Yuuri watched that interview an embarrassing number of times. That _wink._ That self-assured laugh. The toss of his hair. _I didn’t realize I was in,_ that acknowledgement that in some hypothetical world, he might someday be down to fuck Yuuri, or at least, someone of Yuuri’s gender.

That little rainbow band had become the focus of dozens of dirty fantasies. Yuuri, when he could bear to imagine himself acting with something like sexual confidence, used to fantasize about running his finger up Victor’s arm and hooking it in that band, using it to draw him close enough to kiss.

People have said it’s a symbol of gay pride. People have said he wears it to wipe away sweat, because a _real_ sweatband would emphasize the size of his forehead.

Yuuri wants to fight those people, especially the ones that mock any part of Victor’s body. Yuuri always assumed that Victor wears it so he can tell which arm is which on replays.

Yuuri shakes his head and tries to concentrate on today’s footage, not on Victor’s ass or his arms or his forehead, which is _perfect,_ thank you haters. Victor’s rainbow-band clad hand rises gracefully on the screen. He comes sweeping into the jump, all grace and style, one _two_ three _four_ rotations so swift and perfect Yuuri could cry. At the end, his skate slips out from underneath him, and his hand slaps the ice in correction.

“Ah.” Yuuri feels his hands unclench. “So close.”

On his phone screen, Victor is writing something down in his notebook. “I was in the air for 0.72 seconds, and I started slowing the rotation at 0.64 seconds—didn’t have enough time to get in place from that. Either I need to get faster or…” He frowns pensively on the screen. “Let’s go to the next one.”

He lands this one with a wobble, and makes a note again. “0.73 seconds in the air, started slowing the rotation at 0.62 seconds. Okay.”

He loses the next one completely, sprawling on the ice. He doesn’t make any comment. He just makes another notation. “0.74 seconds in the air, so air time isn’t the problem. I started slowing the rotation at 0.64 seconds. Dammit. I think I have the range wrong.”

Belatedly, it occurs to Yuuri to ask an important question. “Victor, how are you getting your air times so quickly?”

Celestino sometimes calculated air times for Yuuri from camera footage, but he did it by tracking individual frames on a specialized app, an arduous and annoying prospect.

There’s a long pause. “Well…” Victor says slowly. “Okay. So, I assume you’ve done those computerized jump analysis tests?”

It’s been a while. Celestino has all his skaters occasionally undergo testing. About nine months ago, Yuuri went to a sports science center in Detroit. They’d filmed him jumping, measured him everywhere, and then, a week later, showed him a wire-frame version of himself performing the Salchow in a way that physics had determined to be 100% perfect for his body type. Yuuri had shoved the resulting DVD in the back of his closet. Occasionally, Celestino sits down and compares this mockingly perfect footage of a slightly-thinner Yuuri to the actual reel of disasters that Yuuri calls a Salchow attempt. Yuuri always hates it.

“Yes,” he says slowly. “I have.”

“So you know that for your body, there’s an ideal time frame for speeding up your rotation and slowing it down during the jump. It varies for every person, and it depends exactly on every jump. In fact, it’ll vary slightly for every entrance to every jump.” Victor sounds almost reluctant. “The…um…wireframe analyses are all models anyway, and just approximate. So it helps to test them against reality. So…I do. I think I need to alter the acceptable range for when I start and stop slowing down the rotation of the jump if I want to nail the loop.”

“Maybe?” Yuuri shrugs. “But honestly, it feels like knowing that information isn’t a lot of help. I mean, you can _tell_ yourself that you need to start doing something at exactly 0.62 seconds, but how on earth are you supposed to know what 0.62 seconds is while you’re getting dizzy in the air? I feel like the point of all that information is just to show you how badly you’re doing. How do you even use it?”

“Okay.” Victor exhales. There’s a silence, broken only by the sound of footsteps, as if he’s pacing. “Okay. It’s on the treasure map. Okay. Fine. I’m telling you. But, um…”

“No, no,” Yuuri says, realizing belatedly that he’s asked a competitor (although it’s not like he’s _actually_ competition for Victor) to share a secret. “I mean, you don’t have to tell me, if it’s like, you know, not something you want to share.”

Victor gives a tentative laugh. “It’s not that. It’s… Look, Yuuri. I know you, um, kind of…um, think I’m a good skater.”

“Kind of? Good?” Yuuri leans forward, his outraged fanboy self fully engaged. “Victor, you’re the _best._ You’re the best skater who has ever lived. How can you doubt that?”

There’s another hollow laugh.

“This…might change your opinion of me,” Victor says. “I’ve…never actually told anyone else about this, except Yakov. But…” He takes a deep breath. “Okay. Right. I want you to know.”

“Know what?”

“I’m sending you a present,” Victor tells him gravely. “It…might take a couple of days to arrive.”

“You don’t have to.” Yuuri is only slightly panicking. “Especially not if it’s expensive, it’s not expensive, is it?”

Victor laughs, and it sounds so wrong, especially now that Yuuri knows what his laugh _should_ sound like. “It…depends on what you’re counting as the cost. What I’m sending you is not really that expensive in the grand scheme of things. I’ll explain everything when you get it.”

#

It’s Yuuri’s turn to stay up ungodly late the next evening. Instead of going over skating footage with Victor—thank God, two days in a row spent examining how Yuuri is a complete mess would be too much—he and Victor have other plans.

Yuuri finds himself curled up sleeping on his bed at two in the morning, his blankets—which have finally arrived—in a heap around him. Victor is on FaceTime, but Yuuri isn’t looking at him yet—he’s fiddling with his laptop, trying to find a stream that…

“There.” The sound starts finally. It’s all in French, and Yuuri’s French is just passable enough for French people to beg him not to speak French. He can hear the same sounds—the sound of an announcer, the occasional noise of the crowd—echoing from Victor’s phone.

“Do you watch _all_ the skating national competitions?” he asks Victor.

“Just about,” Victor says. “I started a handful of years ago, you know, when I really needed to make sure I wasn’t resting on my laurels.”

“But now that Joubert is out, nobody in France is really competition for you.”

“Hmm, maybe not yet. Doesn’t mean I can’t learn something from them. And there’s always up-and-coming skaters I like looking out for.”

So Yuuri should be peering over his shoulder to spot people who will soon surpass his meager skills, too? Of course he should. He winces. “Ha. I have a lot more to worry about on that front than you do.”

“Huh?”

“Oh, look, they’re starting,” Yuuri says loudly. “Hey, I don’t speak French. Could you translate for me?”

“It’s not like there’s so much they’ll say that we don’t already know.”

“Well, you know. About…the hometowns and stuff. Right?”

There’s a long pause.

“Well,” Victor says slowly. “This is Marc Thierry from Paris. I…assume you understood Paris.”

Yuuri glances at Victor on his phone and blushes. “I meant…for other people.”

This is it. Victor will figure out that Yuuri is full of shit. That he’s a ball of anxiety. No, worse. He’s going to discover that Yuuri is a terrible dog owner.

He won’t just break up with Yuuri. He’ll tell everyone. He’ll mention it in interviews.

In front of him, Thierry eats the ice on a triple toe loop, and Yuuri—who is still carrying a fine watercolor of bruises from his own recent falls—lets out a little noise of empathy.

“Too bad,” Victor says. “His step sequence was so good. But he’s seventeen. Lots of room for improvement.”

Yuuri knows all too well what it’s like to be seventeen and skating poorly at a national competition. The press very kindly refers to him as a “late bloomer.” What they mean is that he couldn’t consistently land a triple axel until he was eighteen.

“Honestly,” Victor is saying, “the musicality of the program is pretty good.”

“That’s true.”

Thierry’s short program comes to a close.

“Fifty-four,” Victor says. “Not more than fifty-six, although sometimes judges in national competitions score high.”

Yuuri sighs. Thierry must be so embarrassed. His first time in nationals, and he couldn’t land half his jumps. Yuuri knows precisely what that’s like, except in his case it had been worse. He’d come in ninth when he was seventeen. He’d barely squeaked out a sixty-two on his short program.

It wasn’t until he was in his twenties that he made the podium. He’s taken first the last two years in a row, but that was only because Oda-senpai had retired, and also because Yuuri had somehow managed to mess up less than everyone else.

“I think he’s one to watch out for,” Victor says. “I can’t always tell. For one, my memory is terrible. I keep a notebook so I don’t forget, but there are people I make note of that never amount to anything, and people who come out of absolutely nowhere and then I look back and I’ve seen them dozens of times without noticing.”

Yuuri doesn’t need to ask which category he falls into. He already knows the answer: Neither. Victor didn’t even know he was a competitor until the banquet. Plus, he hasn’t come out of nowhere; he’s still stuck in the depths of nowhere.

“If I had to guess,” Victor says, “Thierry won’t ever be as beautiful on the ice as you, but he’s got a shot to be pretty decent. He’s young yet.”

Yuuri’s fingers tingle at this praise. He’s always wanted Victor to love his skating, and those words, so warm, touched by that hint of Russian accent mean everything to him. His toes curl in delighted confusion; he finds himself smiling so hard that it almost hurts. This is everything he could have asked for.

Oh. _Oh._

Of _course_ it’s everything he could have asked for. He _asked_ for it. It’s all fake.

The plummet back to reality is painful. He exhales all his stupid, stupid delight in one shattering breath. Victor doesn’t mean this. He doesn’t mean any of this. It’s that treasure map again, stealing all his dreams and turning them sour.

“Don’t.” Yuuri’s barely able to choke the word out. On his computer screen, another competitor is starting. His vision is blurring, darkening around the edges.

“Don’t what?” Victor sounds surprised.

“Please,” Yuuri begs, “please don’t flatter me. I spent years dreaming of you paying me compliments. But I wanted to _earn_ your praise, not be given it because—because—”

He can’t even finish his sentence. His voice is shaking. His hands are shaking.

“Yuuri?” Victor sounds confused.

“Just don’t,” Yuuri says. “I don’t care what I told you when I was drunk. I don’t want this. Please. Take it out of the treasure map.”

There’s a long pause. “Yuuri,” Victor finally says. “You never told me to give you insincere compliments. Never.”

“I…didn’t?”

“You didn’t tell me to give you sincere ones, either, for that matter,” Victor says. “Come on. You _know_ I watched all of your footage from yesterday, right? There is no way you got to this level without knowing how beautiful your skating is.”

Yuuri doesn’t say anything.

“You _do_ know that, don’t you?” Victor asks.

Oh. Victor has seen through him. He’s seen through all of him.

“Sometimes.” Yuuri lets the word go out on a humiliated breath. It feels arrogant to admit it, but it would be dishonest to deny it. “Sometimes, when I’m alone on the ice late at night. Sometimes, I can feel it, feel that I’ve hit this level that’s…almost…” Almost worthy of Victor, he wants to say, but does not. “But I’ve never been able to make anyone else see it. In competitions, I fall so short of what I know I can do. But…you’re right. If I were always as ordinary on the ice as I am when I compete, I would have quit a long time ago.”

“You.” Victor’s choosing his words carefully. Probably trying to figure out a way to talk about Yuuri’s skating without being offensive. “You think you’re ordinary?”

They’re not watching the French nationals any longer, even though the screen flickers in front of Yuuri. The next skater surpasses Thierry’s score, but just barely.

Yuuri’s stomach hurts. “I’m not fishing for compliments.”

“No,” Victor says slowly. “You aren’t. Okay. Give me a second.”

He disappears from the screen. Yuuri can hear a door open, Victor muttering something in Russian to himself.

“There,” Victor says returning, holding something. “There. Look at that.”

The image shows up a few seconds later. It’s a notebook, held open to a page by fingers that definitely absolutely belong to Victor Nikiforov.

“Um.” Yuuri stares at what he thinks is probably a page of Cyrillic.

“There,” Victor says triumphantly. “That’s it, that’s your proof.”

“Victor,” Yuuri says slowly. “I don’t read Cyrillic. Or Russian.”

There’s a long pause. “Dammit.” Another, shorter pause. “Google Translate.” Victor sounds certain. “There’s an app that will OCR all of this… Gimme a second.”

Yuuri pretends to watch the next competitor, but his routine goes by in a blur that scarcely registers. He’s waiting in the Kiss and Cry when Victor finally speaks.

“There.”

He’s sent a second image, this time a screenshot of the writing that he’s just seen in a textbox. There’s a very bad translation underneath. He starts reading.

_All Japan 2012—Men’s SP_

“Aaah!” The noise is involuntary. “You _watched_ that?” He shakes his head back and forth. That was his Lohengrin program; it’s a miracle he got silver with it at All Japan.

“I told you,” Victor says. “I watch almost all the national programs. Japan is a little harder, because it runs at the same time as Russia, but I’ve always DVRed it.”

There’s a bullet-point description of Oda-san’s short program that year—Yuuri remembers that routine all too well. And then… Well, the text that follows is legible, although Google Translate has mangled the grammar.

_Yuri Katsuki_

_* Great sequence of steps!_

_*Ah so nice he used my entry into the combo 4T-2L-3L from 2010, he’s a fan_

_*How he uses his hands, so expressively, love what he did with Ina Bauer_

_*Oh, my God, the final, close-up on the end, because he’s so cute, I’m so shallow this must be all about skating, FOCUS VICTOR_

_*Skating was good too he will go far_

_*Enough concentrate, you did it Victor_

_*Look at this gorgeous boy in a kiss and cry. I can not wait to ride with him._

Yuuri reads this slightly puzzling translation with a frown. He can’t quite get his mind around it. There are so many things wrong with it. Like _cute._ And _gorgeous._ And _FOCUS VICTOR._ These things probably weren’t translated correctly.

He starts with the easiest one. “You can’t wait to ride with me?”

“Skate!” Victor says. “Stupid Google Translate. It says skate!”

That makes things less clear, not more. All his other questions are so baffling that he doesn’t know how to start. He starts with the biggest one. “You…knew who I was? Before I, um, came on to you at the banquet?”

“Of course!” Victor says it without hesitation, as if knowing Yuuri is as natural to him as a quad flip.

“At the Grand Prix Final, you _knew_ who I was?”

“There were only six of us competing! I’m scatterbrained but I’m not that bad! How could I not know?”

“You asked if I wanted a commemorative photo like you didn’t even know who I was!”

“I asked if you wanted a commemorative photo because I wanted an excuse to stand really close to you and put an arm around you!” Victor replies. “And also to get your number so I could text you the picture! Also because I wanted a close-up picture of you on my phone. I had figured it all out. We were going to exchange numbers and then we were going to go out that night, and I was going to tease you about the triple-triple combo that you took from my 2014 program and you were going to ask me about my entrance into the Bieleman spin that I took from your 2013 program.”

“I was?” Yuuri stares. “Wait, you _did?”_

“And _then,”_ Victor says, “we were going to go get coffee before the banquet and we were going to start following each other on Instagram and maybe we were going to be friends or something.”

“Or something?”

“I mean, I sometimes thought of _or something_ when I was showering, but until I met you, it was just idle wondering.”

Yuuri’s head hurts as he goes over this. “We were going to be friends?”

“We were,” Victor says emphatically. “But you walked away from me without a word and ruined my plan. Yuuri, you have no idea how much I needed your advice on how to seduce you. I’m obviously terrible at it.”

Yuuri is fairly certain that he still would have found a way to fuck everything up in Victor’s alternate version of reality. Heck, he’s fucked everything up in _this_ version of reality.

“In _my_ daydreams,” he says, “we always met for the first time on a podium somewhere. You’d look at me and say—”

“Wait,” Victor said, “Before you go on, there’s one thing I need to know.” His voice drops. “Was I on top or on bottom?”

“It went back and forth.”

“I’m down for that. Go on.”

Yuuri pauses. “Was that a sexual innuendo?”

Victor sniggers. “Sorry, I’m about twelve. But yeah, I’m down for that. Or up for it. Both.”

“Oh.” Yuuri can barely speak through the sudden feeling of blood evacuating his brain. “Um. I’m, um. Yes. With you. Is good.”

There’s a long, pregnant moment, one in which Yuuri finds himself wishing he had the nerve to turn to the camera and take his shirt off sexily or something. He’s afraid he won’t manage sexy, and he hasn’t been eating as well as he should. Compared to Victor, his body is embarrassing. Besides, the current routine in the background is using Miley Cyrus for the music, so…no. If Victor laughs at him _now,_ he’s going to just give up…

“Wait,” he says, “when you said you thought of other things in the shower…”

“I thought about you, yes. I didn’t know you yet, so if I’m going to be honest, back before the Grand Prix Final, it wasn’t a really common occurrence. Just once or twice. More curiosity, really, until I got up close and realized you were way cuter in person than thumbnail-sized in the kiss and cry.”

Yuuri just falls back on the bed and looks up at the ceiling. “How is this reality. You’re not just saying that? You actually _wanted…_ to…? With _me?”_

Victor just laughs. “No, Yuuri.”

Of course he didn’t. Yuuri tries not to be disappointed.

But Victor’s voice is low and…sexy, so sexy, and Yuuri loves the sound of it so much that it scares him. “I have been wanting to. With you. It’s the present perfect continuous tense, not the past.”

It doesn’t make sense. _Yuuri_ wants Victor. He wants him so badly, he’s not quite sure what to do with all his want. Victor has always been a figure on his distant horizon, the center of his yearning. It’s impossible to imagine catching Victor.

Victor wanting to catch him in return? Victor wanting that before the treasure map? There is an error in reality, something grave and insupportable. The fabric of the universe is tearing. He doesn’t know how any of this makes sense.

Except…

Except Victor has kept notebooks on all his competitors. Yuuri’s sure he’s not the only one in them. There are plenty of hotter guys on the ice. Demonstrably there are tons of better skaters. It hurts him to realize that he’s one out of probably dozens, but it’s a good hurt, he tells himself. It’s like peeling off a scab, painful and yet satisfying at the same time.

If only it actually felt satisfying.

An occasional thing, Victor said. Yuuri can understand an occasional thing. Hell, _he_ had sex with Annoying Aki. Three times.

That’s what this is. He’s not anything special. He’s just here, now. Victor wants to prove he can have him.

Yuuri never can understand compliments, probably because he’s too good at understanding reality. Here is his reality: he’s never going to be the best skater. He’s never going to be the person Victor stays with. He’s an extra on the stage of Victor’s life, one who’s been given lines for a few episodes. That’s it. It’s a miracle Victor is even talking to him after Yuuri was so rude. In fact—

“Wait,” he says. “If you were thinking all that about the photo at the Grand Prix final, what did you think when I walked away from you?”

There’s a long pause. Victor exhales. His voice comes out on a whisper. “Honestly, Yuuri. I was pissed. And sad.”

“Oh. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be.” Victor blows out a breath. “It was good for me.”

Yuuri sits up. “How can it be good for you to be sad?”

There’s a long pause. He can see Victor bite his lip, then look away. He’s so fucking beautiful, even grainy as he is on the phone screen. He swipes his hair up, then down. “It’s…” He exhales. “It’s…”

Yuuri leans forward.

Victor turns to look him in the eyes over the call. His eyes are blue, so bright blue, and the smile slips off his face.

“It’s a little complicated,” he says. “Now let’s stop getting distracted, okay? This guy is good, if I remember right.”

#

A padded envelope awaits Yuuri when he returns to his place the next day, exhausted by his evening skate. It’s addressed in messy handwriting that Yuuri recognizes as Victor’s. He opens it carefully.

Inside, inexplicably are five copies of the rainbow band that Victor wears on his wrist in practice, each shrinkwrapped in individual plastic, and a note saying TEXT ME WHEN YOU GET THIS.

Yuuri checks the time in St. Petersburg—it’s morning for him—and texts.

The material of the band is fuzzy. It’s not actually elastic, as he’d assumed; it attaches via velcro, and when he bends it, it resists, just a little, against his fingers.

His phone rings a little bit later.

“Hi Yuuri!” It’s an actual phone call, not a FaceTime call, which means Victor is probably at the rink already.

“I got your package.” Yuuri looks at one of the unwrapped bands, bending it in place. “Your secret is…wrist bands?”

“I’m texting you a link,” Victor says. “Install the app at the other end.”

“But—”

“And you’ll need to go to a store and get yellow paint for your skates,” Victor says. “Don’t worry, it comes off with turpentine before competitions. That’s what I used before my gold skates came in.”

“What? But—”

“Hold on, I need to go in Yakov’s office to explain,” Victor said. There’s a bit of a wait, then the sound of a door closing. “I’m kind of nervous, Yuuri. I’m just not sure what you’ll think of me after I tell you.”

“I’m downloading the app,” Yuuri says slowly, “but…”

“Let me ask you a question,” Victor says. “Why do you think my skates are gold?”

“Because you win gold all the time?”

“No. It’s because,” Victor said, “it’s too hard for the software I use to distinguish between silver skates and the ice.”

“Your software,” Yuuri repeats dumbly.

“My software. I hired someone to work on it some years ago, before there were any useful free skate apps. At first, I really just wanted something that would calculate my air time without having to count individual camera frames. I didn’t think it would be hard to accomplish. It’s so easy for me, a human, to tell when my skate is no longer on the ice from a picture. But I guess human brains are better at interpreting subtle distinctions in saturation. It was really hard for a computer to differentiate between the ice and the skate. Both those things are somewhere on the gray-blue spectrum. Gold is a different hue, and so the software can differentiate better.”

“I.” Yuuri swallows. “You wear gold skates because it works better with your _software?”_

“Um, yeah. Also, if there are two skaters on the ice, the software knows which one is me without my having to tell it. It turns out that finding the skates is the hardest problem. Once we had a program that could find my blades on the ice, there were apparently a ton of other metrics we could make it calculate aside from airtime. Things like the exact angle between the outer edge and the ice, my speed going into a jump… Just a ton of stuff. I don’t exactly understand all the math that goes into it.”

“God.” Yuuri’s head is whirling. “That sounds like…a lot of information.”

“It is,” Victor says. “So I record every jump I do, successful and unsuccessful, and then I hand the data over to my data analyst, and _she_ correlates between successful jumps and unsuccessful jumps to figure out _exactly_ what I’m doing when I hit the jump. I’m not operating off of guesswork. I _know_ what I need to do to land the jump. Exactly.”

“Oh.” Yuuri feels slightly overwhelmed. More information about how he messes things up sounds just like…more information to screw up.

“The, um, wrist band.” Victor sighs. “It’s not a sweat band. It contains a three-axis accelerometer, a tiny microchip, a bluetooth chip, and a force-feedback mechanism. It detects exactly when I’m jumping. Once I know what I need to concentrate on—for instance, when to slow down the rotation in the jump—I can program the parameters into the app. You said that you can’t tell the difference between 0.6o seconds and 0.63 seconds in the air, and of course you can’t. You don’t have that accurate an internal clock, not without training it.”

“Then…”

“But you _can_ train it. This band will buzz at the exact times you program in. You’ll learn to recognize what that time interval feels like.”

Yuuri still isn’t quite sure he comprehends exactly what Victor is telling him, except that Victor is a genius.

“With the way you can practice—Yuuri, you hit 32 jumps in your last session—you could _crush_ with this.”

“Wow,” he repeats. “That’s…a lot. It’s a lot to take in.”

“I know.” Victor sighs. “Everyone thinks I’m the best skater, and… It’s actually kind of been dragging on me. I’m not _that_ good.”

Yuuri’s jaw drops.

“I just have a tool that nobody else has access to. I mean, yeah, I’ve been world champion a couple of times…”

“ _Six_ times,” Yuuri says in open disbelief. “And the last four times have been consecutive.”

“I’m not doing anything against the rules, but I can’t help but think that I’m cheating somehow. I…” He trails off. “I completely understand if this…changes how you see me.”

“That’s not even counting your wins in juniors!” Yuuri counts backwards on his fingers. “And… since you weren’t using gold skates then, it doesn’t count your first two world championships! Or your gold medal in Turin? How can you say you’re just not that good a skater?”

“I didn’t have a lot of competition back then!”

“So what you’re telling me is that you realized that you could be an even better figure skater than you were as two time world champion and Olympic gold medalist. All you needed was another tool. You then _developed_ the tool that nobody else had thought to develop, and having used it effectively, you think that your wins don’t count?”

“I—well—it’s—it’s not that, it’s just that…I feel like if people knew about this, they…would know I didn’t deserve all those wins. I don’t know if that makes sense.”

It _does_ make sense to Yuuri, in a deep, painful way. He knows exactly what it’s like to hear people praising him for things that he doesn’t deserve. It’s soul-destroying, to yearn to achieve something and then be told that he has it, only to know, deep in his heart how badly he’s failed.

He _knows_ what that’s like, but _Victor_ shouldn’t know it. Victor is what Yuuri’s wanted. He is the pinnacle that can be reached. How can _Victor_ doubt the value of what he’s achieved?

“Well.” He struggles to make sense of it and finally gives up. “You’re wrong. You deserve everything. And you won’t win this argument. I have been practicing for this moment my entire life. When I was fourteen, I broke my parents’ keyboard arguing Victor Nikiforov facts with idiots online, and I want you to know I won _every single argument._ I am the absolute _best_ at proving that you’re the greatest ever. The only reason I stopped arguing online is because I realized I wanted to beat you to the gold medal at the Grand Prix Final.”

“And you realized I was beatable.”

“No, I realized that it would be _extremely_ embarrassing to have to excuse myself from talking to you on the podium because I had to argue with your online haters.”

There’s a long pause.

“Um.” Yuuri feels his face flush. Oh. _No._ He hadn’t meant to bring up the existence of nikiforovfan17983. “Maybe…forget I said that?”

“Yuuri.”

“Forget I said all of that?”

Victor exhales.

“Um, but I guess not if it makes you feel badly again? Then…I guess you can remember it.” Yuuri feels his face get more and more red.

Victor exhales again. “Just wait until you use the app, and you see how large of an advantage it gives you. It’s okay if…if you decide…”

“If I decide what?”

“That you like me less,” Victor whispers.

That’s when it hits Yuuri. He _likes_ Victor. He really, really likes him. His like squeezes his chest so powerfully that he can hardly breathe.

Normally, he’d hide his emotion deep inside, a growing secret to add to all his other secrets. He can’t now, not with Victor talking such ridiculousness. He’d fight anyone who said this kind of crap about Victor, and the fact that it’s Victor himself talking doesn’t matter.

“I like you more,” he mutters.

“You…do?”

“More and more,” Yuuri says, his whole body flushing with emotion. “Every day.”

Whatever he told Victor in that treasure map was genius of the cruelest order. He feels like Victor has been peeling back every one of his layers, exposing his vulnerable heart. It’s the kindest invasion, and Yuuri is so, so vulnerable to him.

“I like you so much,” Yuuri confesses.

“Oh.” Victor sounds almost dazed. “Yuuri. That’s…good, isn’t it?”

“On a scale of one to ten, ten being the highest…” Yuuri says slowly, “it’s…a poodle.”

Victor gasps. “Yuuri, that’s the _best.”_

“Yeah.” Yuuri shuts his eyes. “It’s the best.” His hands clench. “I think you’re the best.”

It’s the best, but he’s lost poodles before. He lost _Vicchan,_ and…

Victor is the best, and like the poodle who bore his name, he’s going to rip Yuuri’s heart out when this is over.

_Not yet,_ Yuuri begs. _Don’t let it be over yet._

Yuuri _likes_ Victor, and if he can’t win at All Japan, it’ll be over already.

#

The fact that Yuuri likes Victor shouldn’t be such a realization. He would have said that he liked Victor at any moment up until now. _Like_ felt like too pale a word for the longing that Victor inspired in him—the desire to meet him on the ice, to stand on the podium with him, to introduce himself as a competitor, as someone worthy of Victor’s attention. He’s fantasized about having him in what he thought was every possible way. He’s wanted Victor with a soul-deep yearning.

It _wasn’t_ every possible way. He’d never imagined they could be friends like _this._ He comes to realize one impossible fact over the course of the week before All Japan starts: He never really liked Victor until now. Not _him._ Not the Victor he’s coming to know, the Victor who laughs so easily and makes jokes on their runs together. Not the Victor who is so serious, recording each jump, figuring out the exact tolerances of every jump in his routine.

Victor is kind and sweet and generous, and Yuuri likes him so, so much. That like folds into his other emotions—his yearning, his longing. It slides into the pain Yuuri carries in his heart. It weaves itself into the secret feeling that his performance at the Grand Prix final was a punishment for abandoning Vicchan. His like for Victor hurts, because not so deep down, he’s afraid that maybe, his punishment isn’t over.

He runs with Victor in the mornings and likes him more and more. One day, at six thirty, still half-dreaming, he finds himself back in Makomanai Park, mere feet from the rink. Snow is falling around him. The sun hasn’t risen yet. He looks around at the pristine untrodden landscape, waiting for the first passersby, and feels, in his half-sleeping state, that he’s found his heart.

The thought of those coming footprints hurt. He thinks of the last time it snowed in Kyushu. Yuuri had gone running along the beach, Vicchan barking and running beside him. He’d laughed at the little dog-shaped paw prints embedding themselves in the snow.

Now, the snow is bare and waiting, and his heart hurts.

This is what he’s like—unexplored territory, waiting for Victor to walk through, leave footprints, and vanish.

“Yuuri?” Victor’s waiting in his ear bud. He’s waiting…for now.

Yuuri shoves the well of emotions that has risen up back where it belongs.

“Yeah,” Yuuri breathes. “I’m turning around now. What were you going to tell me about Mila again?”

He runs, and he skates, and he talks about skating.

He lands his Salchow again and again, the band Victor gave him buzzing on his wrist. He practices over and over until he dreams it buzzing, until he knows the precise duration of every motion in the air with a grim certainty.

Two days before All Japan, Celestino compliments Yuuri on his programs, and offers a flow of encouragement that Yuuri feels he doesn’t deserve; if he’s done better, it’s because of Victor, not because of himself.

“Just land that Salchow,” Celestino says.

“I will. I promise.” It’s a stupid promise, and Yuuri keeps thinking of how dumb it is.

Yuuri _likes_ Victor, and if he can’t win at Nationals, he’s going to lose him.

He moves his skating things into a hotel much nearer the rink the day he talks to Celestino. The JSF is paying for the room, which is a relief—running five kilometers to the rink every day would be a pain in the best of circumstances.

That next morning, with the short program on the horizon, he goes on another run with Victor.

Victor’s short program for Russian Nationals is tomorrow—Victor’s tomorrow, Yuuri’s today. Yuuri is, of course, planning on watching him skate, as he always does. It will be different this time, though. He _likes_ Victor, and he’s going to have to skate the very next day. His emotion is building up, a heavy lump inside him. All he has to do is keep it swallowed until after All Japan.

“Heading back now?” Victor says. “Good luck, you’re going to do so well! I can’t wait to cheer you on.”

That lump of grief threatens to break through. Yuuri squelches it.

“Not back yet,” Yuuri pants. “I have another errand. I have to get something.”

“Yeah? What is it? Need me to be your shopping list again?”

Yuuri stops just outside the shrine that was his destination and collects his breath. “Um.” Yuuri has no idea how much Victor knows about Japan. He’s competed at the NHK a couple of times, but competition isn’t a good way to learn about a country. “It’s, um. Hard to translate. I’m getting a picture horse.”

“A picture horse?”

“It’s called an ema in Japanese,” Yuuri says. “Picture horse is just how it translates. It’s difficult to explain. I’ll show you.” He picks through the wooden plaques in the little booth, and finally chooses one with a sheep on the front. There’s nobody there; he drops the requested 500 yen in the box, and finds a Sharpie.

The sharp smell of permanent ink hits him for a bare instant when he uncaps the pen, but the scent dissipates quickly as the point hovers over the reverse side.

“It’s this thing at shrines,” he tries to explain.

“Oh?”

“Yeah. There’s a picture on the front. You write what you’re wishing for on the back. They call them horses, because horses were the vehicles of the gods?”

He sounds like an idiot. Yuuri remembers all the times in Detroit he tried to explain something Japanese to a Westerner.

At best, it was awkward. Ciao Ciao had tried to look supportive and culturally sensitive when Yuuri had asked for help finding a Shinto shrine before Skate America. Emphasis on _tried._

“Did you know,” Victor says, “that googling ‘picture horse’ does not give me anything useful—oh, wait, it just wasn’t on the first page.”

He must be reading, because he falls silent.

Yuuri stares at the blank wood in front of him. He should ask for luck at All Japan, to make up for the embarrassment he brought on his family—no, his entire _country—_ at the Grand Prix Final.

His Sharpie moves, drawn instead by the selfish, shameful wish of his heart.

He snaps a picture of his ema as he hangs it up—front only; he doesn’t want Victor translating the words on the back with his fancy OCR thing.

He sends it off to Victor. “There. That’s it. It’s a tradition for me. I do it before every competition.”

“What did you wish for?”

Yuuri flips his ema over. His handwriting has always been easy to read, and the words stand out starkly against the wood grain. _Please give me Victor’s time for now, if only for a little longer._

“Oh,” Yuuri says vaguely. “The things I want, but don’t deserve. Now stop talking to me. You have a championship to win.”

#

Fifteen hours later, Yuuri watches Victor win.

Victor’s theme is _Questions,_ and in the few weeks since the Grand Prix Final, he’s refined his short program so much. Yuuri can’t put his finger on just what has changed, but for some reason the questions feel more real to him.

He doesn’t wonder who or where or when, not anymore.

He wonders _how?_ He wonders _why me?_ He wonders _what if I don’t deserve this?_

_Fantastic job,_ he texts Victor when he finishes top of the charts.

_Go to sleep, Yuuri, you’re skating tomorrow, I’m so excited to watch you!_ Victor texts back.

Yuuri barely sleeps. When he does, he dreams about falling, his wrist buzzing discontentedly.

The questions from Victor’s routine are on his mind all the next day. _How? Why me? What if I don’t deserve this?_

They stay on his mind through the warm up. They’re on his mind as he waits to take his place on the ice. They’re on his mind when he strikes his opening pose.

If he can manage to deliver the program he knows he’s capable of, maybe he’ll hold Victor’s interest for longer than a hot minute. The prize money will enable him to pay for more coaching; he’ll represent Japan at Four Continents and Worlds. This is it. If Yuuri doesn’t screw this up, he can have Victor, for at least a little while more.

He has to win. He _has_ to. Victor is watching. Celestino is watching. Phichit is watching. He can envision his family and friends gathered in front of the onsen TV.

For a second, he imagines Vicchan with them.

No. No. He can’t have this emotion, not now. Not _now._

He grabs it and tries to stuff it back down his throat, the way he’s managed to do every day for the last two weeks. Now is not the time to think of his dog, of the years he’s sacrificed.

The music starts, and so does Yuuri. He _has_ to win.

He thinks of what he wants as he makes his way through his step sequence, pushing hard, moving with every muscle of his body.

He gathers speed, skating backwards, getting ready to hit his quad Salchow. He wants, he wants so much. He gave up five years of his life for this. He gave up his family and Vicchan—

Over the last week, Yuuri has learned exactly what he needs to do to land a Salchow. That just means that when he fails this one, he’s aware of everything he’s doing wrong. It unfurls in painfully slow motion. His knee somehow isn’t in the right place as he takes off. His core isn’t tight enough, his leg isn’t under his right hip the way it should be, his body contracts too slowly and he doesn’t have the rotations. His skate hits the ice not just with a wobble; the landing slides out from under him and he smacks his elbow against the ice in a painful, jarring collision.

He’s so rattled it takes him a moment to get to his feet. His arm is throbbing; his knees are unsteady. He’s behind the music, and he skips an element to catch up, and that throws him off…

His hands are shaking by the time he finishes, if you can call the remainder of his program _finishing._

There’s nobody with him in the Kiss and Cry but the JSF representative assigned to him. Celestino is not here. His parents can’t leave the onsen. Minako couldn’t get anyone to cover for her in her bar, because it’s Christmas, a big day for her. Yuuri puts his head in his hands.

All he had to do was not mess up Nationals. If he had been able to redeem himself there, he thought that maybe he’d be able to prove to himself that he would be worthy of that night with Victor.

Victor’s short program asked Yuuri questions.

_What if I don’t deserve this?_

It’s not a surprise to discover after all that he doesn’t.

#

_Yuuri. You okay? I know you can rock the free program tomorrow, ganbatte!_

_I’m fine, Phichit. I just need to practice._

_#_

_Hey, Yuuri. Are you okay? I wish I could talk to you more, but the free skate starts in three hours, and Yakov is yelling about on-ice time._

_It’s fine. Good luck with your free skate, Victor._

#

It is not fine.

#

When he finally gets back to his hotel room a few hours later, he picks up the phone immediately.

He doesn’t call Victor. He spoke to Celestino while he was waiting for the event to come to its painful conclusion. He put off Phichit and his mother in the elevator on the way to his room. It’s not even his cell phone he picks up.

He waits three rings, until he hears a comforting and unfamiliar voice asking him what he wants from room service.

“Yes,” Yuuri says into the hotel phone in Japanese. “A cheeseburger. And fries, please.” No, wait. This is Japan. Living in Detroit has spoiled him in regards to overeating; if you order fries, you’ll almost certainly get a mountain. Here, though… “Fries, two orders. And…” He glances at the menu. “A milkshake.”

Yuuri is lactose intolerant. The men’s free skate is tomorrow. The milkshake alone is probably as many calories as a bowl of katsudon.

“A strawberry milkshake,” Yuuri clarifies. His hands are shaking. He doesn’t like strawberry.

Under no circumstances should Yuuri have a milkshake. He just got off the phone with Celestino after his disastrous short program, and he’d promised his coach he’d eat healthily and sleep well. He had also promised his coach that he’d land his Salchow, so clearly Celestino should not trust his promises.

It’s a good thing the hotel here caters to American tourists, because if there’s one thing Yuuri has learned after five years training in Detroit, it’s that no culture does craptastic food as well as America.

After Yuuri’s performance? Craptastic is the only thing he deserves.

“Will that be all?” the man on the other end of the line asks.

“No,” Yuuri says. “Please add a slice of cheesecake to my order.” Because that’s exactly what he needs right now. More dairy. “And can I get that a la mode?”

“You…want your cheesecake with ice cream?”

He should have ordered in English. They would think he was an American. He flushes with the knowledge that some employee on the other end of the line is rightfully judging him.

“Never mind the ice cream,” he manages. It’s the only restraint he has.

He’s glad Victor is skating tonight, that there’s four hours between Sapporo and Yekaterinburg. Between interviews and practice, Victor hasn’t had a chance to tell Yuuri what a disappointment he was.

For another few hours, he can live in a world where he can delude himself into thinking that Victor is still interested in him.

He wonders if Victor will break up with him immediately after Yuuri messes up his free program tomorrow, or if he’ll do it after he’s claimed his own gold.

He’s pacing the room, reading the news about himself—he had promised Celestino he wouldn’t do that, either, but apparently he’s a massive liar—when his phone lights up.

_Victor Nikiforov_.

Shit. Shit. _Shit._ Victor’s supposed to be _skating_ in a couple of hours, and he wants to talk now? He’s breaking up with Yuuri. Already.

Can he even call it a break up when all they’ve done is talk? Are they even together? Or has this just been the world’s longest, least successful booty call?

He makes himself answer. “Hi.”

“Yuuri.” Is he imagining that condemning tone in Victor’s voice?

“Hi,” Yuuri repeats.

“Are you okay? I was just reading—”

“I’m fine.” He forces himself to laugh. “I read that article, too. The one that said I was probably injured? Yeah. I’m not.”

“I know,” Victor says. “I’ve watched you practice all week, remember?”

“Then you get it. I just suck.”

Victor exhales.

“Look,” Yuuri says, “I know you had this idea about me? About what I was capable of? I think I just proved to both of us that I’m nowhere near your level.”

“Yuuri. One bad day…”

“Three bad days,” Yuuri says. “Two at the Grand Prix. One now. It’ll be four tomorrow.”

“Yuuri.”

Yuuri is not imagining the reproach in Victor’s voice. He feels the harsh sting of tears in his eyes; he’s managed not to cry yet. He’s not going to cry with Victor on the line.

“You know what? This isn’t working,” Yuuri says.

“ _What_ isn’t working?”

“Me and you.” He’s going to say it before Victor can. He’ll save Victor the pain of having to be the bad guy. “We’re not working, okay? Let’s end this.”

“Yuuri!”

Yuuri hangs up on Victor.

His phone lights up a few seconds later.

_Victor Nikiforov._

Great. Just great. He inhales. He considers not answering, but his phone buzzes angrily in his hand, and Victor deserves better than this.

He picks up.

“Hi.”

“Yuuri,” Victor says, “what’s going on? Are you breaking up with me? Are you okay?”

No, Yuuri wants to say. He’s not okay. He hasn’t been okay since he fell on the ice at the Grand Prix Final. He hasn’t been okay since he took Mari’s call weeks ago and found out that Vicchan died. He hasn’t been okay since he saw Victor skating a decade before. Every day of this last week, liking Victor more and more, has made him less and less okay.

He’s been chasing Victor this whole time, and he’s come close enough to brush his hand. He can feel him slipping away, though.

There’s a sharp knock on the door.

Room service.

“I’m fine,” Yuuri lies. His voice is shaking. “Give me a second. My dinner is here.”

He opens the door. A uniformed man comes in and sets a tray on the desk. He removes a cover with a flourish.

The spread looks about as unappetizing as it possibly could. During the trip up to Yuuri’s room, the cheese on top of his burger has congealed. The fries are a giant mass of luke-warm grease. There’s no ketchup.

The milkshake looks like a case of explosive diarrhea waiting to happen.

“Is everything okay?” the man asks.

“Fine,” Yuuri says, signing the slip. “Perfect. Thank you.” He ushers him out of the room.

He can see his phone waiting for him. He sits down in front of his dinner. It smells of old grease and burnt meat. American food may be craptastic, but the hotel-Japanese version of American food is just crap. Yuuri peels the patty up off the dry bun—it’s disturbingly flexible—and lets it land back with a plop.

This has to be the singularly most unappetizing meal he’s ever sat down to, and he has spent the last five years in America, so that is saying something.

With a sigh, he picks up his phone. “Hi, Victor. Sorry I made you wait.”

“Yuuri. What’s happening?”

“I’m tired.” He looks at his tray. “I’m upset. I did terribly.” He wants to stuff himself with everything on this tray and climb into bed. He glances at the night outside. “And you are supposed to be on the ice in not that long. What are you _doing_ on the phone with me?”

“I’m not going anywhere if you need me.”

Stubborn asshole. He’s going to drag Victor down with him. It’s the last thing he wants. Yuuri shuts his eyes.

“I don’t need you,” he says softly.

He is lying.

“I need to sleep,” he says. “And you need to go knock your free program out of the park, okay?”

There’s a long pause. “Fine,” Victor says. “I will. For you. I’ll…talk to you later?”

He’s asking a question. All season, Victor has been asking questions with his skating. Yuuri doesn’t know the answers. “Yeah,” he finally says. “If you want. Only if you want.”

After Yuuri messes up his free skate tomorrow, he doubts Victor will even bother.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so…I’m sorry about leaving the chapter there. I mean, not actually sorry, but vaguely apologetic?
> 
> The next update will be out in a week. BUT. If it, too, expands from like 5K to >10K I’m going to have to consider pushing updates out to every two weeks. But Chapter Three will definitely be out 9/12 at 10 AM PST.
> 
> Chapter Three: In which Victor is, once again, bad at people crying in front of him. DUN dun DUN.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Yuuri is awkward. It’s an incredibly good look on him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First, thanks to everyone who told me last time that Lambiel is Swiss not French… I looked it up originally when this chapter had them watching the Swiss Nationals and then I had to change it because of dates and I then forgot in edits… Embarrassing. You guys are awesome and I appreciate you so much!
> 
> I’m very sorry about where the last chapter ended. I did try to warn people that chapter two was particularly bad (taps notes for chapter one) and…if you look at the tags…mumble something lotta tags still to go, most of the fluffy ones still unused, who knows, maybe I will use one or two in this chapter…

Yuuri wakes up.

It’s disorientingly dark, and he’s still tired. His weariness feels like a black cloud at the back of his skull. His stomach aches slightly—his mind shies away from thinking about last night’s mistakes—but despite everything he ate, he’s inexplicably hungry.

Maybe he slept too long.

A bright flash of fear jolts through him at this thought, cutting through his fatigue. _Shit._ It’s dark because it’s already night. Has he slept through everything? The only thing worse than coming in fourth in the short program would be failing to show up for the free skate the next day.

Yuuri sits up and yanks his glasses off the table, his heart pounding in overdrive. His hands shake as he slides the earpieces into place…

The clock in the room says it’s nine in the morning. His breath hisses out on a sigh of relief. He overslept, but not by _that_ much. The only reason the room feels so dark is that he dragged the black-out curtains over the windows.

The day has just begun.

Good.

And… Damn. He still has to skate.

The remains of last night’s dinner—the half-eaten graham-cracker crust from the cheesecake, a pile of cold and soggy fries, the congealed mass of left-over milkshake—sit on the other side of the room, judging Yuuri for a string of poor decisions.

Maybe, if he skips breakfast, it’ll cancel out. Probably not a good idea either, but he can’t feel too upset. After the storm of last night, his emotions feel like flattened, papier-mâché versions of themselves.

He feels like he’s forgetting something, something he was supposed to do…

“Oh,” he says into the darkness of the room. “Victor.”

Guilt rises. He has to be the worst boyfriend in the entire history of gayness, and it’s a long history.

To be quite technical, he’s not sure he ever _was_ a boyfriend. He’s probably more like the guy Victor was trying to fuck. But even if some kind person might have called him something more, Yuuri thinks he might have broken up with Victor. And even if he didn’t, the things he said…

God, he winces, just thinking about them. He was upset and hurting and he threw all that emotion at Victor. After he hung up, he has a vague memory of dipping salty fries in the milkshake—thank god he didn’t actually drink the damned thing—in an attempt to console himself before crawling into bed in a carb-induced haze.

“Oh,” he says sitting up straighter. “Shit. _Victor.”_ Victor’s free program was last night. Yuuri fucking missed it in the middle of his pity party. He is the _worst_ hypothetical-maybe-a-boyfriend on the planet.

But no matter how shitty a non-boyfriend he is, he has always been Victor’s best and biggest fan. He scrambles for his phone and googles hastily, the autocomplete bar suggesting _Victor Nikiforov_ the moment he types _V._ Results, results. Where are the results?

Unsurprisingly, Victor crushed his competition in the free.

He ended up a full thirty-two points ahead of his competition. Not that national competitions count for these things, but he scored a season’s best with his performance.

Yuuri claps his hands over his mouth as he watches Victor skate. Even watching the video replay on his tiny mobile screen, he can see that Victor has brought something new to the program, an expressiveness in the way he moves, the way he looks as if the whole world is a secret and he’s the only one who knows it.

The routine has always felt sad; now that sadness seems to have acquired an extra dimension. There’s almost an excitement to it, the way Victor looks over his shoulder. The camera flashes in on a close up, and it should be utterly illegal for Victor to look so good. His eyelashes flutter and there’s a smile on his face. _Come hither,_ that look says, and Yuuri would go hither, thither, or to any whither Victor specified, if Victor would just look at him like that.

At the end of the routine, instead of raising his crossed arms, he throws his hands in the air, reaching for something above him. The entire performance sparks a vicarious spiral of emotion in Yuuri, want and yearning and regret all mixed together.

Victor’s win was never in doubt. He was first in the free and first in the short program. His nearest competitor, Georgi Popovich, can hardly be called near. Yuuri, by contrast… Well. Damn.

It’s five in the morning in Yekaterinburg. Victor has an exhibition skate in the afternoon, almost concurrent with Yuuri’s free skate.

His fingers hover over his phone and he bites his lip. Victor probably doesn’t want to hear from him. His own performance is proof that Yuuri doesn’t deserve so much as a mention on his Wikipedia page. But… Even if Yuuri never has been, or no longer is Victor’s boyfriend, he still adores him.

 _You were so beautiful,_ he texts. _I almost cried. Thank you._ He hits send, but his fingers still hover over his phone.

 _If you still want to talk to me…_ No, terrible. Backspace backspace backspace. _After the free, we should…_ Backspace backspace backspace. _I wish I were a different person._ He stares at this last message for a long time, the closest he has ever come to admitting the truth to anyone, including himself.

Ah. That’s the nature of his regret. He’s _not_ a different person. He’s just Yuuri. He inhales and deletes this as well. The last text will just have to stand alone.

With any luck, Victor will be stuck in interviews and his exhibition skate through whatever disaster Yuuri manages to put on the ice today. Yuuri lets himself fall back on the bed, phone still in his hand, staring at the darkened ceiling.

Victor. The two people he most yearns for are named Victor. One of them is a living legend. The other is a dead dog.

His phone vibrates.

It’s probably Celestino, telling him to get out and get some practice in. Telling him that the seven-point gap between him and first is not that bad and he’ll make it up in the free. Yuuri will have to accept his reassurances and pretend that he’s okay convincingly before his coach will let him escape. He’s not sure he has the energy.

He glances at the screen. It’s not Celestino.

He may be the world’s shittiest non-boyfriend, but he is—still—Victor’s biggest fan. And if Victor Nikiforov wants to call him when it’s five in the morning in Yekaterinburg, he’s going to answer. Every single time.

“Hi, Victor.”

“Hi!” Victor’s voice is soft and sleepy. It’s also surprisingly enthusiastic.

“Shouldn’t you be getting some rest?”

“Don’t tell Yakov.” Victor sounds far too perky for someone who just definitely slammed his free skate into the ground. “But I have better plans! How are you doing? You seemed a little upset last night.”

A _little_ upset. Yuuri feels his jaw tremble. Yuuri broke up with Victor yesterday. Jesus, Yuuri _broke_ up with Victor. Just before Victor had to go and _skate_ at his national competition. He’s probably the worst person in the entire world.

“Why are you being so nice to me?”

“I didn’t realize I needed a reason.”

“I broke up with you yesterday!”

“Really?” Victor seems mildly surprised. “You did? Well, you weren’t very good at it.”

Yuuri sputters incoherently.

“Do you _want_ to break up with me?”

Yuuri considers this. “No. Probably not. But… I’m bothering you!”

“I’m the one that keeps calling you in the early morning! How are _you_ bothering _me?”_

Yuuri doesn’t answer.

Victor sighs. “What’s bothering me is that you think that you’re bothering me.”

It is too early in the morning. Yuuri hasn’t had caffeine. He frowns, lying on his bed and looking up at the ceiling, trying to make sense of this conversation. Victor is far too cheerful. It doesn’t match Yuuri’s expectations at all.

“That’s still me,” he finally points out. “I’m still bothering you, even if the way I’m bothering you is by thinking that I’m bothering you.”

Victor is silent for a very long time.

He’s probably sick of Yuuri. Yuuri can’t blame him; he’s sick of himself.

“Yuuri,” Victor finally says, “I hate to complain, but…”

Here it comes. Victor has finally realized. Yuuri clenches his fists.

“You really could have given me a better treasure map. I am not good at dealing with people having emotions in front of me, and you didn’t give me one piece of advice for how to handle this.”

“Handle what?”

“This,” Victor repeats. “Whatever this is. Are you always this hard on yourself?”

“I’m not being hard on myself,” Yuuri says, slowly sitting up. “This is just the truth.”

“I thought maybe it was…I don’t know, a cultural thing?” Victor says. “The way you put me off when I talked about how beautiful your skating was? If I had told _Chris_ what I told you, he would have made a fancy graphic and spammed Instagram with the quote in a hot second. But now I’m not sure. Are you okay?”

It’s something like the fifth time Victor has asked the question.

Yuuri feels his eyes sting. And then, because all he can do is make things worse, all he _ever_ does is make things worse, he answers with the truth. “No.” It comes out on a whisper. “No, I’m not okay. My dog died just before the Grand Prix final.”

He shouldn’t have said anything. Now Victor knows. He’s going to try and tell him that it’s okay, that he should let his emotions out and mourn. He’s going to try and reassure him, and Yuuri _hates_ being reassured.

“Oh.” Victor says. “No, no, no.” There’s a long, painful pause. “I can’t—” He doesn’t say what he can’t do. Instead, the pause gets longer and more painful. Then, finally…

“What kind of dog?”

Yuuri squeezes his eyes shut. It takes him a moment to process those words. The tears that had almost threatened to appear dry, because did Victor actually just ask him _that?_ He really did.

“A poodle?” Yuuri’s head is spinning.

“I love poodles.”

“I _know._ Victor, did you seriously just ask me what breed my dead dog was?”

There’s a long pause. “Uh.” Victor is silent for a moment. “Oh. I guess I can see how that would be…kind of awkward and…um…not great. I, um. Shit. Um. That definitely sucks.”

There’s an even longer silence. Yuuri bites his lip. He hasn’t mentioned Vicchan up until now because he _knows_ how these things go. People want to pat his shoulder and whisper false platitudes in his ear. They want to hug him, and he hates being hugged. They insist on not leaving until he’s okay, and then he has to waste energy lying just to get some personal space.

“No,” Victor mutters. “Not that, I don’t think that would work.”

“What…wouldn’t work?”

“I, um.” Victor coughs. “I…really don’t know how to handle this? I just googled how to be supportive. This article says to let you cry. Do you need to cry?”

“Um.” Yuuri checks. He’s a little too shocked to want that. “Not right now, I don’t think?”

“Okay, it says I’m supposed to be honest. That’s…definitely not worked for me in the past, so…um, skipping that, and um, skipping that, definitely skipping that. I’m supposed to let you talk about things. Do you want to talk about things? I can let you talk about things. Do you want to tell me what’s wrong?”

Maybe it’s that Victor just asked him what the breed of his dead dog is. Maybe it’s that he’s steeled himself to expect Victor to be warm and gentle, not confused and googling. Maybe it’s just that he’s carried too much for too long.

Whatever the reason, Yuuri snaps. “You want to know what’s wrong? I haven’t been home in five years. I just majorly fucked my short program. If I don’t win, I won’t—” He cuts off his diatribe about money. “I won’t be sent to Worlds as Japan’s representative, and I won’t see you again. I’ve spent the last two weeks alone in Sapporo, and I don’t know anyone, don’t _talk_ to anyone. I ate too much last night and I’m so scared every time I talk to you that you’re going to figure out how much of a mess I am. I have one chance to make this work with you and I’m at my worst, and I haven’t even _congratulated_ you for winning yet. You want to know what’s wrong with me? _Everything_ is wrong with me.”

“Ohhhh,” Victor sings, sounding positively excited. “Not everything! I know what’s wrong with you!”

Yuuri is so taken aback that he bites his lip. “You do?”

“I finally know something without having to google!”

Shit. Victor knows what’s wrong with him.

“Your dog just died,” Victor says, “and you haven’t seen your family in five years. You’re having normal human emotions!”

“I…what?”

“You’re way ahead of me,” Victor says, still sounding ridiculously cheerful given the subject matter. “I only started having normal human emotions again just a little bit ago!”

“What?!”

“I’m serious,” Victor says. “I stopped having real emotions a couple of years ago.”

Yuuri blinks. He bites his lip. “Um. How does that work?”

“I forgot how to be sad at first. And you think that would be fine, because who wants to be sad? But when you’re never sad, there’s nothing to anchor your happiness in place, and that drifts away, too. When you can’t be happy, you don’t look forward to anything anymore, because what’s the point? Then you stop being scared, because nothing makes you feel anymore.”

Yuuri doesn’t know what to do with these words from Victor. He clutches his phone, his heart beating hard.

“On the day before this last Grand Prix Final, I thought—what if I just didn’t do any of my jumps? I don’t mean, what if I flubbed them. I meant, what if I didn’t even attempt them? None of them at all. What would people say? What would they do? What if I just marked them? It was the only surprising thing I could think to do. I remember thinking that if I made everyone in the world mad at me, I would have to feel _something_. _”_

Yuuri’s throat feels dry. “So why did you do them?”

“I decided that if I was going to retire I should do it properly.”

“You’re going to _retire?”_

“I had my PR person write the press release during the awards ceremony,” Victor said. “I was going to announce it as soon as I got back to Russia.”

“Why didn’t you?”

“Well.” Victor exhales. “I guess it starts right after the Final. I was talking to Yuri Plisetsky, and I saw this one man that I’d been trying to meet for years. A little bit of interest, even if I mostly just remembered what it felt like…it’s something, right? So I gave him my best smile, and I asked him if he wanted a commemorative photo.”

“Me?” Yuuri doesn’t know how he’s suddenly appeared in this conversation.

“And he walked away from me,” Victor said, “and I was pissed and sad. I hadn’t been sad in _years,_ Yuuri.”

Yuuri exhales.

“A little later, that same really cute guy came up to me at the banquet out of the blue, and I danced with him, and he was so good at it! Better than me. I had to really stretch to keep up with him. He made me smile, and… I’ve spent the last three years trying to making myself smile? It’s not the same, Yuuri. It’s not the same. So I thought, well, maybe. Maybe I won’t retire. Then I’ll get to see him again.”

There’s a long pause. Yuuri tries to wrap his mind around the idea that Victor spoke these words, and that they are somehow about _him._

“Uh,” Victor says. “Shit. I should have read ahead. The last item on this list that I googled? It says not to make it about yourself. I just made this about myself, didn’t I?”

“It’s fine.” Yuuri shakes his head. “I don’t really like talking about myself anyway.”

“Anyway,” Victor says, “you mentioned a lot of things that were wrong, and I know you said that you had one chance with me, and… Um. I thought you should probably know. You have…a lot more than one chance.”

Yuuri’s weariness swells. “You want to get me in bed that much?”

“No. I mean, _yes,_ but…” Victor sighs. “The treasure map.” His words seem quiet on the phone in the darkened room. “I… I want it. I want to do it. It’s not… The things on it aren’t easy for me. They’re not things I’ve done in a long time. But Yuuri, I… I think I need to do them. For _me,_ as much as for you.”

His phone buzzes; he glances down at his hand, to see a text from Celestino. _Yuuri, are you at morning practice yet?_

“I have to go,” he says tonelessly. “Morning practice.”

“God,” Victor says, “I am…really…totally fucking this up. I don’t think I could be worse.”

Yuuri shuts his eyes. Honestly… This conversation wasn’t as bad as he feared it would be. It should have been worse. Victor could have noticed that Yuuri broke up with him last night. Or maybe Victor could have cooed over him and made comforting noises that would have done nothing but make him feel like crap.

“It’s okay.” He breathes out. “It’s okay. It’s not like you could make things worse than I’ve made them myself.”

“Yuuri, the free is really where it counts.”

Yuuri thinks of his free program at the Grand Prix Final, of that damned quad Salchow that he still hasn’t managed to land in competition. He imagines unraveling in public once again. “That’s what I’m afraid of.”

He can imagine Victor on the end, frantically googling _What to do when your non-boyfriend messes up at a major national competition._

“I really have to go practice,” he says. “I’ll…um… Call you? Later? Tonight? If you still want?”

“Of course I’ll still want,” Victor says. “Go get your gold.”

#

Gold seems impossibly far away during his morning practice. Celestino tells him to avoid doing quads, so as not to psych himself out, but after tentatively landing a triple axle, he finds himself moving on to his Salchow anyway. The landing eludes him once again, and the smattering of spectators watching the practice hum with a sympathy that sets him on edge.

He has to land his Salchow. He _has_ to. The only thing separating him from his nearest national competitor is his quad Salchow. Behind as he is, if he doesn’t land it, he’s got no chance. He won’t win. If he doesn’t win, he’ll lose Victor.

Probably. Maybe.

Victor had said otherwise, but Victor doesn’t understand how dire Yuuri’s finances are, and Yuuri would rather die than admit that he can’t even afford a trip to Tokyo to spectate at Worlds in his own home country if he doesn’t win.

It’s hard to keep his mind off Victor as the next group of skaters takes to the ice for practice. Victor’s exhibition skate is now; he watches it, heedless of how the video eats up his phone data, and finds himself smiling longingly at the screen.

It’s going to hurt when Victor leaves. Yuuri knows that.

Every so often, Hasetsu gets tourists—salarymen, usually from Tokyo, often in their fifties. They arrive with their hair prematurely gray and their smiles perpetually sad. They sink into the onsen and shut their eyes, letting the heat soak in. They walk slowly on the beach, as if they’re not used to the idea of a sea and a shore meeting anywhere but in a harbor glimpsed from an office window.

They stay—one month, three, in one case, a year.

Sometimes they start smiling before their time is up. Sometimes they don’t. Always, they’ve come in search not of whatever it is that Hasetsu has to offer, but because they’ve been pushed there by something lacking in their life.

When they find it—or realize that _it,_ whatever it is, is not to be found, not in any of their walks on the shore—they leave.

Victor doesn’t want Yuuri, not really. He wants a safe haven.

But Yuuri still can’t help but yearn for him in return. More now than when he was just a celebrity on the ice. Now Yuuri knows so much more than what Victor lets the public see, and he likes him, and…more. So much more. It’s practically a guarantee of future pain.

He still wants it.

He has one chance. One chance. He _has_ to land that Salchow.

Afternoon bleeds into evening. The noise of the crowd filters to the back corridor where Yuuri paces, trying to keep his nerves in order.

He has one chance. Land the Salchow. Land it.

Except… Victor told Yuuri he had more than one chance. He explicitly told him, and given that Victor had failed to be comforting in every other possible way, Yuuri is pretty sure he meant what he was saying.

Yuuri didn’t understand it at the time and he doesn’t understand it now.

He turns it over in his head when he should be considering his Salchow, trying to make sense of it.

The women start skating.

Victor said Yuuri had more than one chance. Why would Yuuri have more than one chance? Why would Victor be willing to extend that much courtesy, when Yuuri’s just some random guy he met at a banquet?

The reason is obvious. Yuuri’s been trying to avoid it for over a week now. He knows he has; the truth has never made sense to him, and so he’s shoved it away.

But. There have been clues.

First, Victor wants to execute Yuuri’s treasure map, whatever is on there. He wants it. Wants it desperately.

Second, Victor stays up to midnight practically every night to go on a run with Yuuri.

Third, Victor told him about the app he built, something he’s never told anyone, and sent him everything, without making him sign an NDA.

Fourth, Victor got up at five in the morning to try and console him. Victor did an absolute shit job of it, true, but nobody’s ever successfully consoled Yuuri before, and Victor definitely tried. And he did that after Yuuri was so incredibly rude to him the night before, too.

Phichit has told Yuuri before that he can occasionally be oblivious. Possibly, Yuuri acknowledges, in this instance he has maybe, _maybe…_ Maybe, he has missed a few clues.

Okay, a lot of clues.

Yuuri has spent half his life working to stand on the podium next to Victor, reaching, yearning, practicing, _desiring._ He’s dreamed of the moment when they stand next to each other, medals around their necks, and Victor looks over at him with his trademark smile and introduces himself. But that was _Yuuri’s_ dream.

The view from the top of the podium? It’s different. Victor’s been standing at the pinnacle of skating all these years, nothing changing but the people who flank him a few steps down. He hasn’t been waiting for yet another breathless, worshipping skater to stand beneath him and stammer out endless noises of appreciation.

Victor’s been waiting for someone to yank him off the podium altogether and take him dancing.

Victor, of the insane schedules and the app and the gold blades, Victor of the _well, I just let everyone believe it’s easy_ camp, Victor of the awkward non-comfort that he had to google to provide in the first place? That Victor? The Victor that Yuuri is just beginning to know?

Victor is _lonely._

And yeah, obviously he has some weird ideas about what Yuuri is like, no doubt brought on by meeting Drunk Yuuri and Sexually Aggressive Yuuri all at once. But he’s lonely and he has been for years, and he’s reaching out, and goddammit, Yuuri has wanted to take his hand for far too long to object to the fact that Victor extended the invitation to a person who really doesn’t exist most of the time.

The real Yuuri is a mess. He’s grieving, he’s lonely, he’s anxious, and he’s irrational.

He checks the lump of grief in his chest. It’s still there. It’s not going to dissolve if he cries; it’s not going to move if he talks about it. He’s still sad, and he still hurts.

But Victor is lonely. He needs someone who probably isn’t actually Yuuri, but Yuuri is the person he reached for. Yuuri may be a grief-stricken, anxious irrational mess, but he’s the mess that Victor took a chance on.

Yuuri’s going to reach back. He cares too much not to.

His teeth grit. It’s simple now, laid out like this. He _has_ to land that Salchow. Not just for himself, not just for his family, not just to redeem himself from the mess of the Grand Prix. He has to land that Salchow because without it, Victor will be on his own.

Victor’s loneliness is one more thing to add to his list of worries, but Yuuri has carried a mountain of worries for a long time. He can take one more thing.

#

Yuuri manages to hold his emotions together until he’s on the ice again, the lights bright on him and the crowd whispering in hushed tones. The scene is so much like last night, like the final free skate at the Grand Prix final, that his emotions come back on a tide of regret.

_Do you really deserve this?_

He doesn’t have an answer. He shoves the question away, hard, but his grief is still there, a cold, hard box at the center of his chest, waiting to spill on the ice at the first opportunity. He shakes his head and tries to get his mind in order. _Don’t mess up the Salchow. Don’t mess up the Salchow. Whatever you do, don’t mess up the Salchow._

The music starts. There are two quads in his program, both in the first half. He works up to the first one—a quad toe, double toe combination. He’s not going to mess this up. He’s not.

He’s almost shocked when he lands with only a slight wobble on the second toe loop. The crowds cheer; Yuuri shuts them out. Too soon to relax. The quad toe combo is nothing; he can _not_ fall on the Salchow.

That damned Salchow stays on his mind, looming closer and closer through every intervening element. It’s coming up, just before the program turns to the second half. _Do not, absolutely not, mess up the Salchow. You cannot mess up the Salchow._

Through his layback spin and the choctaw turn leading up to it, the same thought echoes. _Don’t mess this up._ Then it’s coming, coming, almost here. Yuuri tenses as he gathers speed. His take-off is good; he can feel it. He knows exactly what he needs to do— _do not mess up the Salchow—_ but still he hesitates the slightest fraction of a second too long.

It’s too much. His feet hit the ice holding too much angular momentum. He spins, over-rotating, then wobbles. One knee bends awkwardly. His hand brushes the surface, cold through his glove.

It takes him a moment to understand what he’s just done.

Fuck.

Fuck. That’s it. That’s it then. His chest feels like fire as he loops around the ice.

He had one thing to do. _All_ he had to do was not mess up his quad Salchow and he could have won. _Knew it,_ some back part of his mind chants, _knew it, knew you weren’t good enough, knew you couldn’t do it, knew you didn’t deserve it._

He didn’t make it. Yuuri throws himself into the next element, twizzles dividing the main rink in two the way his life has been divided: before he saw Victor, and after he saw Victor.

The _after Victor_ portion of his life is coming to a close.

He’s failed. He’s messed up his free skate, too, and this is it, this is the end. No Victor. No redemption. No season, no career, nothing to show for his five years of sacrifice but this final blot on his record.

Yuuri still has half his program to skate, and he has already lost. He has to stumble through the rest of this. The main challenge is not to burst into tears where cameras will catch him. His family has to watch him implode yet again. His friends will have to field calls from reporters wanting the secret story of what happened to Katsuki Yuuri at All Japan. Victor will know that Yuuri was nothing but a mistake.

Victor… Will go back to being lonely again.

Yuuri’s mind flashes to what Victor told him—about wondering what would happen if he just didn’t do any of his jumps at the Grand Prix Final. Perhaps that’s the moment when grief splinters inside him, breaking into something darker, something redder.

Fuck it. Fuck this entire stupid free program. Yuuri has already lost. He’s going down anyway. Victor was onto something with his idea about the jumps. Why stick with the program he has when it doesn’t matter anymore?

Yuuri would never _not_ do his jumps; that would be disrespectful to his coach, the audience, the JSF. Still, he’s already lost. What’s the point? If he’s going to go down, he’s going to go down _big._

He can feel every split-second of his step sequence. His movements feel powerful and precise, and he’s _angry,_ because somehow, despite all the evidence to the contrary, he let himself believe that it was possible to actually redeem himself in the free. What happened? He fell on the Salchow again.

There is no redemption. Not for him. Not this season, not this year, possibly not this lifetime.

The next element is a triple-triple combo. It approaches, the moment stretching out on the ice.

Yuuri’s dog died and he hasn’t seen his family and he can’t afford his coach and he has spent five years working and _working_ and it is fucking bullshit that he’s messing up his free program, bullshit that he can’t land that stupid quad Salchow in competition when he has been nailing it in practice. It’s fucking bullshit; it’s all fucking bullshit, and since he’s apparently going home, he might as well go big—

He doesn’t think about it, not consciously. His instincts have been honed by the last week of practice, and somehow his body knows exactly what it’s doing before it bothers to inform his mind. Somehow…

Somehow, his triple salchow-triple toe loop turns into a quad salchow, triple toe loop. The air swishes by before he can catch up with reality; he raises one arm on the toe loop. He’s vaguely aware of an explosion of sound as he lands.

He shoves the audience’s surprise away.

He’s already lost, and he doesn’t _care._ His stupid, careful second-half choreography hasn’t helped him all season, and so he doesn’t bother to help _it_. He has already lost, and this is the last public skate of his season. He’s never going to skate this program again, so fuck it. Really, fuck this program. A triple toe-loop becomes a triple flip; a triple axle turns into a triple axle-triple toe-loop.

He’s not thinking at this point, not thinking of anything except that he lost, he lost, and he’s so sick of losing. The ache in his muscles, the burn in his chest, that store of grief inside him—none of these things are relevant. He’s lost too much already, and he’s so _bored_ of losing properly. If he has to lose, he’s going to do it his own way.

He comes out of the combination spin dizzy and determined, sweeping along the ice, turning as he goes for his last element. It’s supposed to be a triple loop.

_No, Yuuri, what are you doing, that’s too much, even for this—_

Too late. He’s committed himself. It’s something he’s only ever practiced in his late-night anxiety sessions, something he’s never _admitted_ to practicing before, not to Celestino, not to Victor, not even really to himself. It’s not like he’s ever _landed_ a quad flip.

He doesn’t land it now. He doesn’t even get all the rotations in. He breaks his fall with his hand—ouch—then his shoulder—double ouch—but the pain feels almost good. _There, just like that. If I have to fail publicly, let me fail with some goddamn style._

He scrapes himself off the ice in time to make his final sit spin, to stand up out of it into a flourish. Yuuri isn’t quite sure why he does it, but as the music dies down, he raises his hands in the air, reaching to the ceiling. Reaching the way Victor did, because even after all this, even after he just fucked his program to hell and back, he still wants to reach back.

His breath seems loud in the resulting silence. It’s the first thing he notices.

The second thing he notices is a dull throbbing in his wrist. Ouch. He did something to it on that last fall.

There is no time to notice a third thing, because the audience jumps to their feet with a roar of applause. They clap and scream and throw bouquets.

Why are they doing that? It doesn’t make any kind of sense. He fucked everything up, completely, entirely. He fell _twice._ Why is everyone so excited? Why are they waving posters with his name on it? Are they trying to cheer him up? Is this pity applause?

He takes a breath, skates to the onigiri pillow that’s landed near him and bends to pick it up. His program unfurls in his mind, every last mistake. The tiny wobble on the toe loop combo. That painful overrotation on the Salchow. He let his grief, his anger get the better of him, and…

Wait. What the hell? He landed a quad Salchow combination in the second half of his program. Then there was that triple axle-triple toe loop combo. And he…added in a quad flip in the last twenty seconds of his program?

What. The. Hell. He skated a program with four quads in it. He didn’t land half of them cleanly, but…

 _Oh._ Reality comes as a surprise as he stands on the ice, watching the crowd. He bows to them, suddenly staggered by the revelation, and then bows again because he feels just a little dizzy. _Maybe I did okay after all._

#

He is as baffled as everyone in the audience must be as they put the gold medal around his neck. The score doesn’t count, because it’s not an ISU competition, but he’s somehow managed what would otherwise be a personal best in his free skate—198.2 points.

His combined score is thirty-five points above his nearest competitor, and he still has no idea how it happened.

#

“Katsuki-kun,” Morooka asks him after the medal ceremony, “what inspired you to make such substantial changes to the back half of your program?”

“I just…” Yuuri scrubs his hair, trying to recapture the state of his mind. “I…really, I just got tired of losing, I guess.”

The reporter standing next to Morooka blinks. “But—the relative difficulty of your programs even without the…two extra quads… _You_ were worried about _losing?”_

“Right, that’s what I said. And then, I guess…” He feels a goofy grin take over his face, remembers that moment of throwing caution to the wind and just skating to prove that he _could_ even though he lost _._ “I guess… I just started…having fun?”

#

_What the fuck, Yuuri? YOU CAN DO A QUAD FLIP?_

_Phichit, you know it’s embarrassing for me when you exaggerate. Obviously I can’t do a quad flip._

_Whatever, a 3.9 flip. You were soooo good. Celestino swore when you did it. We’re freaking out over here!_

_Tell Celestino that it slipped out, I don’t know how it happened. It just did._

_SURE it did. BTW quad-flip fanboy, I noticed that you ended your program with the same exact move that Victor Nikiforov pulled out at the end of his utterly ridonk free skate at Russian Nationals. So, like, he’s skating a program about questions. AFAICT the main question his free program poses is “who’s going to bang me next?” I KNOW YOU. You basically answered “me.” Do you think he’s watching?_

Yuuri winces. Over-rotated the Salchow, under-rotated the flip. _I sincerely hope not._

_I doubt anyone who doesn’t know about your little obsession will notice, so you should definitely wear a sign saying VICTOR PICK ME at Worlds. Ha ha, what would you do if he saw it and came onto you?_

Yuuri considers this for a moment, before answering as honestly as possible from direct, personal experience. _Probably I’d freak out forever._

#

_Congratulations, little brother! We’re all so proud of you. Can’t wait until you come home._

_Thanks, Mari._

#

_Ciao Ciao Yuuri! I told you you could do it. You might have overdone it a little, but it’s good to see you with fire in your belly again._

_Thanks, Celestino. I’m still not sure what happened. I guess I’ll take it though. Let’s talk about a real coaching schedule for 4CC Monday?_

#

_Yuuri, that was sexy as hell. Will you please fuck me_

_Ah. Ha ha. Whoops. I did ***not*** mean to hit send on that. I was just trying to figure out something smoother to say and was messing around and accidentally hit send, you can tell because I left off the question mark._

_Ignore it please?_

_…I’m just going to pretend that your not answering means that you’re ignoring it like I asked. That’s good, right?_

_Uh, okay. Good? Good. I’ll just answer for you._

_Let’s pretend I said this instead: That was amazing, I can’t believe you pulled so much out of the back half of your program!_

_Yuuri?_

_Yuuri?_

_Yuuri? I know I kind of screwed up earlier when I talked to you, and I know you mentioned breaking up with me… I’ve been kind of trying not to think about that all day because I had my exhibition skate. But are we okay?_

_Yuuri?_

_Yuuri?_

_It’s fine if it’s not okay, but please just talk to me._

_Hi Victor, something came up. I’ll call you as soon as I can._

#

It’s almost midnight when Yuuri finally gets back to his hotel room. Thank God for time differences; it’s not that late where Victor is, and the hours that have elapsed since he sent his last text have been ticking in his head. His phone battery is long since dead and gone; he plugs it in and waits for it to decide to wake up. In the meantime, he fills the hotel ice bucket from the machine down the hall.

Victor’s probably pissed.

He mashes the home button as soon as he’s back in his room; the screen taunts him with the out-of-battery image.

“Come on, come _on.”_

The Apple logo finally appears, and Yuuri taps his fingers impatiently, waiting for the home screen before diving into the FaceTime app.

Victor answers almost instantly. “Yuuri. I was…” Yuuri hears his voice before he sees him, the video finally appearing, showing Victor in his own hotel room.

“Hi.” Yuuri smiles.

Victor looks…worried. His eyes dart to Yuuri’s. He bites his lip. “Hi, Yuuri.” His voice is low. “I’m, um. I’m really sorry about earlier. I didn’t mean to send that first message.”

`“It’s okay.”

“And, um, before that.” Victor shifts. “I…reacted kind of badly? I should have been a lot more supportive, but you said your dog died and I thought of Makkachin and she’s sixteen, and something in me—it just shut down, because she’s all I have. I couldn’t think, I couldn’t think. So I just panicked and said stuff.”

“It’s okay.”

“And I probably would have sucked anyway. I told you I’m really bad at dealing with people having emotions in front of me.”

“It really is okay,” Yuuri says. “I…um…am really bad at letting people comfort me? This one time, back in Detroit, a rinkmate of mine got hurt and landed in the hospital. I was in the waiting room, and really worried, and this one girl tried to hug me to comfort her.”

“Oh?”

“I shoved her away before I could think of it.”

“Why?”

Yuuri shrugged. “I don’t know. I guess, I just hate when people think I’m weak. That I need things.” He shuts his eyes. “So…it’s probably good that you’re bad at comforting people because I’m bad at being comforted.” He swallows. “Besides, I should be apologizing to you. I was really rude to you last night. I’m sorry. I’m something of a mess all the time, but I’m not usually this bad. This has just been a hard couple of weeks for me.”

“It’s not like I’ve made it any easier.”

Yuuri opens his eyes, startled. “What? No. You’ve been the best part of the last few weeks. By a wide margin. I know I’m…not that exciting right now, but I’d be even more of a mess without…”

Without all of it. Without those morning runs. Without Victor laughing with him and going over his workouts and making him feel like there was some center of normalcy to his uprooted life.

He swallows, because Victor is looking at him with those blue, blue eyes. “You shouldn’t, you shouldn’t worry about…that. I want you to know. You have a lot of chances with me, too.”

It’s too much truth, but he can’t look away from Victor’s eyes. Not now.

Victor looks away first. “Why did it take you so long to call, then? Did I do something wrong?”

Yuuri holds up his right hand, sporting a compression bandage. “I didn’t think it would take that long to escape after the ceremony. My battery was at two percent when I saw your texts. And then one of the JSF officials noticed that I kept cradling my wrist, so they made me go to the doctor and I had to get a stupid X-Ray just so they would know it’s not broken.”

“Oh, no. Is it—”

“Just sprained, but I’m supposed to stay off the ice for two days.”

“Ugh, I hate that.”

“I’m going to pretend I misheard him and skate at the exhibition anyway. It’s fine if I just don’t do quads, right?”

“Sure,” Victor says. “I do it all the time. So, um, you weren’t avoiding me because my last text…”

Victor glances back, and somehow, having to look into his eyes makes it harder to say the words that come to mind. But Victor is lonely, and even if he didn’t mean to say it to Yuuri, he said it, and he hasn’t denied wanting it.

Yuuri hasn’t given Victor much yet. He gathers up all his courage and makes his mouth form the words. “Because you said you wanted to fuck me?”

They’ve talked about sex before. It’s not a surprise. Yuuri has known, sort of, in a way that he hasn’t wanted to admit to himself that Victor wants to have sex with him. It doesn’t _entirely_ make sense, especially because logically, this must mean that Victor is attracted to him at least a little. Victor could have anyone. Why would he choose Yuuri?

But he can see the way Victor’s eyes linger on him now, his gaze the only caress he can give while they’re this far apart. He looks at Yuuri like Yuuri is someone worth looking at.

Yuuri’s catalogued all of Victor’s expressions—every interview, every program. This look Yuuri sees on his face right now is familiar in a way he should recognize, but he can’t remember when he’s seen it.

Yuuri’s own want, a lust that has been brewing for years, is another thread of emotion coiling around all the other emotions he has.

“Victor,” Yuuri says, “you already told me you wanted to get me in bed. If that was going to drive me away, don’t you think it would have done so already?”

“Well. There is that.” Victor blushes, and he’s so damned beautiful when he’s blushing that Yuuri wants to reach out and touch him.

“I mean, it’s probably obvious that if I’m still here, it’s because… I kind of really want the same thing?”

Victor’s breath whispers out. “Do you?”

It’s not really confidence that drives him. He’s not sure what it is—the calm that comes after a storm, perhaps, or maybe just sheer obstinacy because it feels like he should not be here, like he should not have won, and yet somehow, he did. “I mean, me and the rest of humanity. Victor, you’re the most beautiful man I’ve ever met.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah. I—” Yuuri leans forward, coming closer to the phone screen, and then grimaces as pain shoots through him. “Fuck.”

“What?”

“Sorry. I kind of smacked my shoulder on that last jump, and it’s going to bruise. Do you mind if I get some ice on it while we talk?”

“No. Of course not.”

It takes a moment to get things ready. Yuuri retrieves the plastic bags he keeps in the front of his carry-on and then awkwardly shovels crushed ice inside with his left hand. He rinses a hand-towel briefly before wrapping it around his ice pack. Finally, he takes his shirt off and examines himself in the hotel mirror.

There’s a not-so-faint red mark on his back, dotted with tiny, redder abrasions where the sequins of his costume dug into his skin.

On the phone that Yuuri has propped up against his lamp, Victor whistles. “That’s gonna be a good one.”

Yuuri hisses as he sets the ice against his shoulder. The cold is painfully numbing, and he lets out an exhale.

So does Victor.

Yuuri looks back to his phone in surprise.

Victor is biting his lip. He catches sight of Yuuri looking at him and blinks, then quickly averts his eyes. “Sorry! I—um, I’m sorry, I should have asked before I looked.”

 _Victor_ wants to look at _Yuuri_. The world feels inverted.

“You should be sorry,” Yuuri jokes. “Did I say you could look away?”

Victor’s cheeks turn pink. “Oh. Um. In that case.” He leans forward and sets his chin on his hands. “Want me to set a timer for you?”

“Sure.”

“Ten minutes?”

Yuuri nods. One hand on the ice pack; the other in a compression bandage. If Victor wants to watch _that,_ he can feel free. Such is the oh-so-sexy life of a figure skater. He rearranges himself so that his good hand is free, and slowly manipulates the hotel’s electric tea kettle to heat water.

“I wish I was there,” Victor whispers. “It’s bullshit that we’re competing at the same time but we’re not in the same place. I could hold your ice.”

“My ice. If you were here, that’s what you’d hold—my ice?”

Victor smirks.

“Come on, Nikiforov,” Yuuri says. “I got your text earlier. You think you can pretend to be smooth now?”

“Oh, no. My secret’s out.”

It’s nice to be able to tease each other after last night’s bout of emotions.

The electric kettle hisses, and Yuuri one-handedly rips open a packet of granules before adding steaming water. The smell is familiar and medicinal.

“What’s that?”

“Um…” There is no translation. “It’s jidabokuippo. It helps with bruising.”

“Does it work?”

Yuuri shrugs and swallows, grimacing at the bitterness. “One person isn’t exactly a clinical trial, but yeah, it does. My mom used to make it for me at home when I’d get banged up on the ice. If nothing else, it reminds me of her.” His heart clenches for a second. “I can send you some if you want to try it. Speaking of which, isn’t—”

Yuuri freezes in sudden realization.

“Argh. I was going to say that your birthday was coming up. But _yesterday_ was your birthday, and you didn’t say anything?”

Victor just shrugs. “It’s not a big deal. I spend it at Nationals every year.”

“No _way.”_ Yuuri winces. “I can’t believe—I was so wrapped up—I _forgot_ your _birthday,_ Victor.”

“It really isn’t a big deal. We haven’t been together that long. And I didn’t tell you about it or expect a gift.”

Yuuri frowns. “You _should_ expect.”

“What should I expect?”

A little tinkling noise interrupts the conversation. Victor frowns and fusses with his phone. “Oh. The timer just went off.”

“Good. My shoulder’s frozen.” Yuuri stands and tosses the ice in the hotel sink.

“You know,” Victor says carefully, “if you want to get me a birthday present, you could just leave your shirt off.”

Yuuri swivels back to his phone.

“Ha, just joking!”

Yuuri raises one eyebrow.

“Joking…ish.” Victor sighs. “Don’t worry about me. You should probably go to sleep?”

“Tomorrow’s Sunday. The exhibition isn’t until two, and I’m pretending I can’t skate until then, remember? I can stay up a little longer.”

Victor gives him a delighted smile, and oh, Yuuri thinks he might never sleep. Instead, Yuuri pointedly picks his shirt up off the desk, folds it, and then tosses it over his shoulder onto the bed behind him. “You were saying?”

Victor hadn’t really been saying anything. He leans forward now, as if that could close the distance between them, his eyes fixed on Yuuri with a burning intensity. He opens his mouth, blushes, shuts it, and grins helplessly.

Maybe the way Yuuri feels is contagious. He’s in a weird space of liminal emotions, when grief and anger have temporarily abated. Maybe it’s because it’s close to two weeks since Yuuri woke up in Victor’s room, and he remembers the aftermath of his last competition—holding Victor’s hand, feeling that wash of panicked arousal when Victor leaned in for a kiss—all too well.

Maybe it’s because Yuuri likes Victor, because this is still happening and his shirt is off and his nipples are tight and possibly it’s just the after-effects of the ice…

Or maybe it’s because Victor is looking at him like he wants to touch, and Yuuri wants nothing more than to let him.

“Tell me a little more about yourself,” Victor says into this burning lapse of conversation. “What are you studying at university?”

“Physiology.”

“Oh, that’s cool.”

“Cool.” Yuuri rolls his eyes. “ _Sure._ I thought I’d learn some stuff that would help with skating, but…not so much. Now I just know the names of the muscles when I pull them.”

“Yeah? What’s that one, then? The one you’re touching.”

Yuuri’s finger stills on his shoulder, where he’s been unconsciously tracing the cold skin of his forming bruise. “Huh.” His mind blanks. “In English? Um. Sankakukin, sankakukin, I always screw up the translation to English because it’s _san_ in Japanese, which means three, but it’s not the triceps… Oh, right. That’s it. Deltoid.”

Victor points a finger at his phone screen. “What about that one?”

“I have no idea what you’re pointing at.”

“That one—to your right.” Yuuri’s fingers move. “No, farther. More up.”

 _He’s lonely,_ Yuuri thinks, _and I’m here, and he’s reaching out, and I’ve shoved him away enough. And also…_

“Maybe,” Yuuri says slowly, “if you _really_ wanted to show me, you could take off your own shirt.”

… _Also,_ he reminds himself, _Victor Nikiforov without a shirt is highly relevant to my interests._

Victor’s eyes meet his. A faint flush of pink touches Victor’s cheeks, spreading down his neck. Yuuri wants him so, so much. Slowly, he pulls his shirt off.

God, he’s beautiful. That blush spreads down his chest, a faint dusting of color. He has more hair than Yuuri, a light brush across his chest; a line running down the center of his perfect abs. Yuuri wants to lick the flat of his tongue down that line, to taste his skin, to feel him shiver underneath him.

“So, doctor,” Victor says, trailing his fingers along his collarbone, before circling lower. His nipples are a dusky rose, and when his index finger traces one, it stands to attention. “What’s _this_ muscle called?”

Yuuri needs to say something sexy. something that captures his own arousal, that lets Victor know how fucking hot Yuuri finds him. Something like—

“I’m not training to be a doctor.” Agh. No. Something _not_ like that.

“No?”

“And it’s a good thing,” Yuuri unfortunately continues, “because if this were a medical examination, the things I want to do to you would constitute a horrendous breach of medical ethics.”

He wants to smack his forehead as soon as the words come out of his mouth. If there is anything less sexy than professional ethics, Yuuri doesn’t know what it is.

But Victor’s eyes just shine. “I wouldn’t want you to breach medical ethics.” _Victor_ manages to make the word _breach_ sound sensual. His lashes dip down like a gray veil, but his eyes stay still, blue and electrifying, fixed intently on Yuuri. Yuuri wants him to breach everything—his defenses, his privacy, his body. Especially his body.

“Right.” Yuuri swallows, feeling himself blush. “That would…be okay.” He flinches. “Bad, I mean. It would be bad, not okay. Don’t listen to me.”

He’s bad at this. So bad.

Victor’s fingers are still trailing just below his collarbone, brushing his nipple. His skin is flushed and rosy, and his eyes haven’t left Yuuri’s.

“Daikyoukin,” Yuuri blurts out.

“Hmm?”

“That’s what that muscle is in Japanese,” Yuuri says. “Please don’t ask me for the English. I can’t…really think of anything at all right now. I’ve always thought yours were particularly beautiful.”

Victor’s smile spreads. “Nobody has ever told me that.”

Yuuri’s face flames. “What, nobody’s ever tried to seduce you by reciting the names of muscles in Japanese? I’m shocked.”

“Are you trying to seduce me?”

Yuuri almost facepalms, but doing so presents his bandaged hand directly to his face. Slapping it is probably not effective therapy. He settles for covering his eyes instead. “Not doing a very good job, obviously.”

“Mmm.” Victor’s almost humming. “I beg to differ. You know, if I just changed the angle of this camera, I think you’d get an idea of how well you’re actually doing.”

Yuuri chokes. “Oh?”

“Yuuri, I’m so hard.”

He just says it, just like that, and in that moment, Yuuri is, too. He wants so much, and he doesn’t know how to put that want in words that will sound right.

“Oh,” he manages again.

“I can’t _believe_ we don’t get to see each other for three months,” Victor says.

Yuuri peers through his fingers. “Oh,” he says for the third time in a row, because he’s spent weeks telling himself that this is over, that he can’t have Victor, that he won’t be sent to Worlds…

He’s going. The JSF announced it tonight. He’s going to see Victor and they’re definitely going to fuck unless he somehow messes things up between now and then, which is all too likely, and oh, shit, he’s not sure if he should laugh or cry, because he doesn’t know how _this_ moment, watching Victor Nikiforov brush his nipple with a finger, back and forth, with heated arousal in his eyes, is his life.

“We should practice,” he blurts out.

“Practice what?”

Yuuri makes himself pull his hands away from his face. He’s utterly red, but given how terribly he’s been doing, it’s not like he can actually make things worse. “Um.” He swallows. “You may have noticed that I’m…sometimes…a little bit awkward?”

“What? You?”

Yuuri bulls on, afraid of stopping. “And Worlds isn’t that long a period, we’ll only have a couple of days together. I was thinking… We should practice having sex before then so we can get all the awkwardness out of the way.”

Oh, _no._ It sounds even worse out loud than in his head. Yuuri has somehow managed to make the world’s most terrible proposition to the world’s sexiest man.

“That’s…” Victor trails off, tapping a finger to his lips.

Stupid. Nonsensical. Even more awkward than Yuuri’s normal self. Incredibly unsexy.

Victor’s tongue darts out and touches his fingers. “That is _such_ a good idea,” he breathes. “I’m awkward, too! We should practice. We should practice a lot.”

It is probably the kindest lie anyone has ever told Yuuri, and he feels a swell of bittersweet affection. Victor’s nice. He’s so nice, to pretend awkwardness just to make Yuuri feel better. Yuuri wants him so much, and Victor is _looking_ at him like that again, like Yuuri’s some undiscovered continent on his horizon, and Victor has been at sea for years.

Yuuri has never had phone sex before. Or cam sex. Hell, he’s never had sex with _anyone_ he’s yearned for this much. When it comes to Victor, his want stretches out, years long.

And this is Victor Nikiforov. Victor. Nikiforov.

His throat is dry. His pulse is pounding. He takes a deep breath. He doesn’t know what to do, what to say, but it doesn’t matter. Waiting won’t make him less awkward. He’s going to push forward anyway.

“Is—I mean, that is—would…now? Is now okay?”

Victor’s hand slides south off the phone screen, and Yuuri can imagine him palming himself through his pants. Yuuri’s spent hours—a simply shameful number of hours, really—trying to extrapolate from shadows and bulges in photos. The thought of not having to _guess_ any longer makes him harder.

“Now would be great,” Victor whispers.

It turns out that a lifetime of sexual fantasies is no preparation for reality. Fantasies skip all the awkward transitional bits—the asking, the moving forward.

Now. Yuuri’s supposed to do something now. What? His brain wasn’t doing well before his blood fled to his dick.

Pants. That’s it, that’s his only idea. Probably he should take off his pants? He grew up in an onsen. He can do this.

He angles the phone where it sits on the desk so it catches all of him in the frame. Then he hooks the fingers of his left hand in the elastic of his track pants.

“Oh.” The needy noise out of Victor’s mouth shoots straight to Yuuri’s groin. “Oh, yes.”

Gingerly, Yuuri pulls the other side of his waistband down another couple of centimeters. His thighs are always the main problem in fitting clothing—no matter how much he diets, they never do slim down, and if he starts thinking about that now, he’ll end up so self conscious that he won’t be able to breathe.

“ _Yuuri.”_

A few more centimeters down on the original side.

“Yuuri, you’re killing me with this strip tease.”

Yuuri turns to glare at the camera. “I’m not trying to tease! I only have one hand! Do you know how hard it is to take off your pants with one hand?” He holds up his sprained wrist in reminder, and Victor dissolves into bubbles of laughter, so bright and delighted that Yuuri can’t help but laugh with him.

“I forgot! Yuuri, you’re so sexy, how was I supposed to realize it wasn’t on purpose?”

“Your fault for not being here. If you were here, _you_ could take my pants off.”

Victor’s breath hisses in. “On my knees,” he says softly. “that way, when I get them off I’m in position to…”

What Victor would hypothetically do trails off as Yuuri finally manages to maneuver his pants and underwear, in one mass, over his stubbornly, stupidly thick thighs. Victor stops talking, biting his lip, and Yuuri’s whole body flushes in response.

“You are so beautiful,” Victor breathes.

Yuuri turns so that his hip faces the phone, and tries not to panic. “You must love big, purple bruises.” That one’s from yesterday’s Salchow.

“Impressive, but not the big thing I was admiring.”

Yuuri’s fingers skate up his dick. He’s hard, and even that light brush feels good, so good. “You mean this?”

It’s a phone screen, he doesn’t say. There’s no perspective, he doesn’t say. Camera angles are weird, and maybe it’s a special lens… He doesn’t say anything at all because Victor bites his lip and pushes back his own phone. He’s farther away, which means Yuuri can see more of him.

All of him—his soft athletic pants tangled around his knees, the trimmed hairs at his groin, a slightly dark shade of silver than his hair. The thick hardness of his shaft.

“I want you so much,” Yuuri breathes.

_This won’t last._

_I don’t care._

“Me too,” Victor says. “I mean, I want you. Not I want me. That would be weird.”

Not weird at all. If Yuuri were Victor, he’d want himself. He’d want to slide his hands through the silver fall of his hair, to touch his body from the chest on down. He’d want to explore his own hips in detail.

It feels so good now to watch Victor, to know that Victor’s watching him every bit as assiduously as he’s watching back. He takes himself in hand, and it just adds to all his other wants, twining between them, binding them together in a bundle of emotion.

“Yeah. Like that,” he says, as Victor sets his hand on his dick and gives it a tentative stroke. “Do it like that. God. I wish I was touching you.”

“ _Yes.”_

Victor’s hand jerks on his cock. Yuuri gives in, stroking himself in return. Victor reached out for him, and he wants to reach back. No matter what. Always.

It feels good, that slide of palm against his dick, sensation gathering. It should feel slow and not quite right—he’s using his left hand, and the motion isn’t as smooth or as practiced as he’s used to—but Victor’s eyes on him add the heat he so desperately needs, making up for every imperfection.

“Fuck,” Victor says. “Yuuri, oh, fuck.” Victor comes in spurts, catching it with his free hand, his eyes squeezing shut.

Yuuri knows because he doesn’t look away, not during his own orgasm. He doesn’t know how long he’ll have this, and he wants to cherish every second, every heartbeat, while he still can. He comes hard, his senses filling, as Victor looks up into his eyes.

He almost feels like he’s floating for a moment. His whole body tingles, and he feels. He feels so much—joy in counterpoint to the ache of his right hand, pleasure in opposition to the throb of his hip. That underlying grief still hasn’t gone away. It twines with something warm and inviting. Victor smiles at him, and Yuuri’s never had an orgasm quite like this, one that leaves him so open, so vulnerable.

He doesn’t know what to say. Instead, Yuuri finds tissues and rinses himself off at the sink. When he comes back, Victor’s picked up his phone and moved to the hotel bed in his room so many kilometers distant; he’s lying down on a cloud of white sheets, smiling, and he’s close, so close to the screen.

It feels rude to do anything but copy him.

Yuuri curls up with his phone on the bed and struggles for something to say.

_That was so good._

_I should have done so much better. I’m going to make it better._

“Hey,” Victor says softly.

Victor is _nice._ He is so nice that it hurts. Yuuri likes Victor so, so much.

Victor is lonely, and Yuuri is who he has—Yuuri who doesn’t open up, Yuuri who holds his cards close to his chest and lashes out and then tries to apologize by having phone sex while listing muscles. The imbalance between them leaves him almost dizzy.

But Victor reaches out, smiling softly, and touches his fingers to the phone screen. “Hey, you.”

“Me?”

Victor’s smile practically glows, a spill of sunlight in the dim fluorescence of Yuuri’s hotel room.

“You,” Victor says. “You, you, you. I am so glad I didn’t retire.”

It’s going to hurt so much when Victor discovers the truth. But Yuuri can’t regret anything that’s happened, no matter how much it will hurt.

“I’m so glad I went to the banquet,” he confesses instead. “I almost…didn’t.”

It’s not that Victor’s glow dims. It just softens. He traces one finger down the phone screen again. Yuuri wonders what part of him Victor is touching on his screen—his hair, his lips?

For a second, Victor’s finger is a blot of red, blocking the camera.

“Hey, you.” His voice is soft. “About…all that. Are you okay?”

Yuuri knows he’s not asking about what just happened. Two days ago, Yuuri might have lied. One day ago, he might have thrown out the truth like a handful of spiked caltrops, hoping to trip Victor up. Today…

Yuuri sighs. “No.” His eyes flutter shut. “No, it’s been…just, a really, really hard month, Victor. I’m not okay.” It’s a lot just to let Victor see this, to have his emotions in an open room with someone else present.

But Victor is lonely, and Yuuri wants him to have this honesty. He doesn’t say anything. It’s a warm silence, not expecting.

Yuuri exhales and opens his eyes. “But for the first time… I think I will be. Eventually.”

“That’s good,” Victor whispers.

“What about you?” Yuuri asks. “Are you okay?”

Victor looks away. “Why wouldn’t I be okay?”

“That thing you said earlier today.” Yuuri doesn’t take his eyes off him. “About not having any emotions, and thinking about retiring. And I… I’ve watched your programs all year, Victor.”

“Oh?”

“I’m…fairly certain you’re having emotions.”

“Ah.” Victor’s smile splinters. “Well. No. I’m…not okay.”

The moment stretches into silence again.

Victor reaches out. Yuuri thinks he may be touching his phone. “But weirdly, I’m hoping…that I will be.”

They don’t say anything more.

“This is weird.” Yuuri bites his lip. “I had so much respect for you. I wanted to offer up my skating to you as a gift, to show you what you deserved. I’ve spent years chasing you, trying to catch up to you on the ice.”

“Now you caught me.”

Yuuri shakes his head. “No. Now I realize that I was chasing a mirage that looked like you, and that…you deserve more than I ever realized.”

Victor flushes and smiles, and Yuuri can’t help but smile back.

“Isn’t it late there?” Victor finally asks.

Yuuri glances at his phone. “Mmm. It’s one in the morning.”

“You should sleep. You have to heal up so that you can get back to practicing your quad flip.”

“Agh.” Yuuri hides his face. “Embarrassing. I can’t believe I did that in public.”

“ _I_ can’t believe I didn’t know you were practicing it.”

“I didn’t _want_ anyone to know. What if people knew I was trying and I never got it right?”

“What if they _did_ know?”

“Embarrassing,” Yuuri repeats. He lets out a shaking breath, and perhaps that’s what breaks the spell that the rush of endorphins has cast on the moment. Embarrassing? Talk about embarrassing. Yuuri suddenly realizes what he’s said over the last hour.

_Hey, let’s talk about muscles in Japanese. Hey, let’s have phone sex because I’m awkward. Hey, which is bigger: my bruise or my dick?_

Awareness comes to him like the end of his short program. He’s dazed, worn out, scarcely able to breathe, suddenly aware of the brilliance of the dazzling lights reflecting off the ice and the shuffle of the crowd. He can see his mistakes play out on the screen of his mind. Every error. Every over-rotated jump. Every time his fingers kissed the ice.

Victor is smiling at him. “What if they knew, and they liked knowing it was coming?”

Rationality creeps in on little cat-feet of doubt.

Oh. God. Yuuri just had phone sex with _Victor Nikiforov,_ the man he’s been yearning for since the day he first saw him skate.

No. Even that is inadequate to describe what just happened.

Yuuri got nervous having phone sex with the four-time world champion, so he recited the muscles of the body in Japanese like a complete nerd. Victor has probably had sex with…oh, Yuuri doesn’t know, but pretty much anyone in his contacts list would likely have been better than someone thousands of kilometers away whose idea of flirtation was “I don’t know this word in English, but I’ve always thought you had a beautiful daidenkin.”

Phone sex is supposed to _sexy._

Yuuri curls in on himself. “I’m, um, I’m sorry.”

“Sorry,” Victor says softly, laughing. “About the quad flip? You _should_ be sorry. You’ve been holding out on me.”

Yuuri took off his pants. God, he just took off his pants without being asked. Victor Nikiforov doesn’t need to look at Yuuri’s stupid thighs when he has himself and a mirror. It had been like being drunk, if one could get drunk on a combination of lust and nerves and idiocy and relief.

“No, I mean—about…how this last little bit went down?” Yuuri squeezes his eyes shut. “I know, I get it. I, um, I’m…just a little…”

“You didn’t strike me as little at all,” Victor purrs.

Yuuri scowls at the phone. He doesn’t want to say it aloud, but Victor is waiting expectantly. “It’s just that….I’m…kind of a dork?” He doesn’t know why he’s whispering. It’s not like it’s a secret anymore.

“Yeah,” Victor says with a chuckle. “You are.”

Yuuri makes himself smile in response. Fine. Victor knows. They’ve acknowledged the obvious.

Yuuri can’t really be offended. He’s been a dork his entire life, after all. He’s not going to be permanent fixture in Victor’s life. He’s here because he’s the one Victor has. It’s fine. Fine…ish.

“I’ll call you on the way to the airport tomorrow, okay?” Victor says. “And I should be back in St. Petersburg before you go to sleep. Sweet dreams, Yuuri.”

Yuuri is still bad at saying boyfriendly things. He fumbles. “Um, thanks?”

It sounds painful. So painful, that he half expects Victor to throw down right then and there and demand that Yuuri admit there’s no way to fuck the awkward out between them. There’s nothing but awkwardness; if they ever fucked it away, there would just be nothing.

Victor just smiles. “Until tomorrow, then.”

Yuuri presses the end call button. He lets out a single, shuddering breath. He knows he doesn’t always look at himself rationally, but that was bad. He really screwed that up.

Victor has probably been hoping for drunk Yuuri all this time. Drunk Yuuri knows how to utter sweet nothings. Drunk Yuuri could charm the scales off a snake.

Sober Yuuri, now… Sober Yuuri freaks out and lists muscles.

Yuuri curls into a tighter ball and rubs his eyes. He knows he was a disappointment.

Part of him hopes that if he curls up tightly enough, he’ll violate the space-time continuum in some inexplicable way that will allow him to go back in time and do it all over. Except sexy this time. Time has never reversed its flow in his entire lengthy experience with embarrassment, but there’s no reason it can’t happen now.

But he’s trying to be rational about this. Time travel is not a rational thing to hope for. Yuuri being sexy is also not a rational thing to hope for.

He cleans off as best as he can—taking off his bandage temporarily, hissing as the hot water against his skin reminds him of every contusion he earned alongside his gold medal. He tries to separate his emotions from reality.

Fine. So that last part was pretty fantastic from Yuuri’s point of view. He knows that his performance was still objectively cringe-worthy.

He knows, because… Wait. How does he know that again?

Yuuri pauses in the bath, frowning, searching for the evidence he knows should be there.

He was watching Victor the entire time. And—here’s the thing, the thing that doesn’t make sense, but is undoubtedly true.

Victor didn’t cringe. Not close. Not once.

Phichit has always said that Yuuri can be a little oblivious, and while Yuuri trusts Phichit to exaggerate, he’s also aware that it’s sometimes true. For a second time that day, the clues add up.

The treasure map. Victor saying that Yuuri has more than one chance. Victor telling Yuuri that he’s beautiful. Victor texting that he wants to fuck him.

If Victor doesn’t mean any of those things, he has to be the shadiest liar on the planet. Yuuri is willing to be hard on himself, but Victor? Never. Never. He couldn’t imagine that of Victor.

Then there’s the way Victor watched him, that familiar look in his eyes. Yuuri’s sure he’s seen it before; he just doesn’t know where. If only he could know _where_ it’s from…

Then he remembers. He saw it this morning.

He scrambles out of the tub and dries himself just enough to still drip water on his phone screen, for his fingerprint to not match perfectly and his phone to complain until Yuuri mashes in his passcode manually like an animal.

He brings up the video of Victor skating his free program. Pauses it at the moment the camera catches the turn of his head, the look on his face.

 _Come hither,_ it says. _Come hither._

Yuuri is sometimes oblivious, but he understood exactly what that look meant when he thought it wasn’t directed at him.

Victor looked at him like that _all_ night.

His heart pounds in his chest.

There’s only one conclusion, one so startlingly obvious that once it occurs to Yuuri, he knows it has to be true, however unlikely it seems.

Victor likes Yuuri. Victor likes him a _lot._

Maybe it will all vanish when Victor learns the truth about Yuuri, but Yuuri has been at his worst today—awkward and anxious, snappish and stupid—and Victor _still_ looked at him like that.

How.

_How._

Yuuri’s pretty sure he hasn’t done anything to deserve this, and unearned advantages are liable to vanish at any moment. He can’t let himself believe that this is anything other than a temporary lapse of judgment.

He stares at Victor in his pink and gold jacket on the screen and smiles so hard it almost hurts.

Victor _likes_ Yuuri.

His screen goes dark.

It feels new and tentative, this rising swell of hopeful mutual affection, like a glide across uneven ice. Victor likes Yuuri, and Yuuri likes Victor, and he doesn’t know how any of this is actually possible or what to do with it.

He doesn’t deserve this. He’s not ready for it.

Still… Yuuri leans forward and touches his lips to the black screen.

And even though Victor isn’t here to see this ridiculousness, he blushes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There we are. Forward progress. Yuuri is realizing some actual true things about Victor, and vice versa.
> 
> Some translations from the chapter:
> 
> 三角筋, さんかくきん, sankakukin: deltoid muscle (essentially translated in text)
> 
> 大胸筋, だいきょうきん, daikyoukin: musculus pectoralis major (the muscle Yuuri blurts out when Victor is touching his nipple)
> 
> 大臀筋、だいでんきん, daidenkin, gluteus maximum (Yes, Yuuri, Victor has a beautiful butt.)
> 
> There is no translation for jidabokuippo except “decoction for contusions.” It's a traditional Chinese medicine that has been adopted in Japan. I’ve had the Chinese version.
> 
> I’m pretty sure these are right but I was basically googling muscle charts in Japanese and then trying to double-check, so…let’s hope!
> 
> Next up, Chapter Four: What is Yuuri going to do with all these awkward emotions? WE SHALL SEE NEXT TIME.
> 
> I did say last time that if the chapter word count jumped up again I was going to have to move to bi-weekly updates, and we’re at 12.5K for this chapter, and I don’t feel quite as badly about leaving you hanging here. So… Chapter 4 will be out on ~~9/26 at around 10 AM Pacific Time~~ I’m sorry, life happened, and it’s going to be a day or two after I originally said. Will update on tumblr. ~~I don’t think I’ll need the full two weeks, but I want to get a solid head start on Chapter 5 because **cough** I don’t want to leave that one hanging for two weeks. I am cruel, but I am not a monster.~~ Also I guess I am now a monster.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for your patience with this chapter. Sorry it was a couple days after I initially said. I know I have a ton of comments to answer but these last two weeks have been…not the greatest thing in the entire world. Hoping to catch up this weekend.

The flush of confused, delighted attraction hasn’t faded by the time morning comes. Yuuri checks the video of Victor skating again over breakfast—Victor still has that look on his face, the look that makes Yuuri want to blush and offer himself up as tribute to whatever gods have apparently smiled on him.

Victor _likes_ him. _Victor_ likes him. Victor likes _him._ He can’t seem to wrap his mind around this fact.

It leaves him simultaneously baffled and overjoyed through an early call with his mother, who says embarrassingly, unreasonably positive things about Yuuri the way only mothers can. Yuuri hates compliments. Even from his mother.

But Victor _likes_ him.

It’s not that he can’t imagine Victor liking him. Yuuri has imagined lots of things with Victor.

He’s even imagined in his more confident moments that one day—if he ended up being incredibly lucky—Victor might grow to know him. In this dimly constructed future, they’d be coaches or commentators or something, thrown together by circumstances. Victor would slowly get to know Yuuri, and one day, he’d announce that he loves Yuuri for some positive quality like… like…

Yuuri’s fantasies never managed to be specific.

Yuuri has no practice imagining Victor being genuinely interested in him right off the bat. It’s a lot. It’s too much. His unease with the concept grows like a palpable force, a shimmering sense of wrongness that creeps into his muscles, his stomach.

He tries to rid himself of these awkward feelings the normal way—by skating.

“Skater Katsuki, why are you here?” asks the security guard, when he slips down to the rink from his hotel room.

“Um… Because I’m on the schedule to practice for my exhibition skate?”

“I see,” the man says. “That’s, um, going to be…”

The next thirty minutes suck. Officials are called. Yuuri’s coach is notified. Yuuri finds himself surrounded by earnest, well-meaning people who apparently all know about his stupid sprained wrist, and who think that it is a big deal.

They give him the kindest lecture about how he is representing Japan and _blah blah_ health over the next coming months _blah blah_ rest is important.

The upshot is that he is barred from skating entirely. No practice. No exhibition. No, he absolutely can’t go on the ice to skate figures; is he _trying_ to exacerbate his injury and cause permanent damage?

They find his insistence that it’s all right, he’s skated tons of times with worse injuries before, to be alarming instead of convincing.

 _Take care of yourself,_ they say in horror. _Japan is counting on you. You’re our ace._

Yuuri is not about to tell them the truth. Victor likes him, but Victor is lonely, and Yuuri is… _Yuuri_. If he doesn’t let this restless energy out on the ice, it’s going to be stuck in his head, ricocheting back and forth until the damage it does is worse than the possibility of injury.

Instead, he retreats and tries to go for a run. It’s not skating, but it’s better than nothing, and his mind is doubling back on itself, again and again.

_Why._

_Why?_

_Why me. How this? What does it even mean? Now that Victor knows that I’m a dork, is he reconsidering?_

Five minutes into his run, waiting to cross an intersection, he’s recognized.

“Oh my god, it’s Katsuki Yuuri, the skater!”

The little group wants selfies and autographs, as if Yuuri were an actual celebrity instead of the guy who accidentally squeaked into first place fueled by sheer stupidity and determination.

The crowd grows as he’s standing there. Yuuri’s not that important, and probably nobody after that first group knows who he is. He guess that some people just don’t want to miss out.

He retreats to his hotel at the first possible instant, both shaken and shaking.

It’s only 10:30 in the morning.

Victor calls at eleven.

“Hi, Victor.” Yuuri’s heart is racing stupidly. He makes himself sit calmly on the bed and tries not to think of the fact that they had phone sex last night. It’s hard—the _it_ in question being both his futile attempt not think about sex, and shortly after that, his dick, because last he is definitely thinking about sex.

“Hi! How are you, my beautiful one?”

 _Him,_ Yuuri thinks dazedly. Victor is talking about him. _How._ He needs to be on the ice, needs to get this shakiness out of him.

“Um, fine.” Yuuri is blushing. Pet name. Pet name. He should use a pet name. Victor saw Yuuri’s dick last night; how hard can a little pet name be?

Thinking about Victor’s dick does not calm his anxiety.

He tries anyway. “How are you, my…” Nope. He can’t do it. It’s too embarrassing. He doesn’t even know what kind of pet name to use. “…Victor,” he finishes stupidly. He squeezes his eyes shut and slides down low, slouching against the headboard.

“Call me that again.” Victor’s voice is breathy.

“Victor?”

“No, Yuuri, that’s not what you said! You’re such a tease.”

“Oh.” Yuuri opens his eyes and feels his face flaming. “You mean… _my_ Victor?”

“Yes!”

“Oh.” Yuuri swallows. “I… Right. Okay. I can… I can do that.”

There’s a moment of silence. Perhaps Victor is waiting for Yuuri to say it again, or maybe to enlarge upon it. Yuuri’s mind circles the conversation like a shark smelling blood in the water. _Dork. You’re such a dork._

He has to say it. He has to blurt it out now, because if he doesn’t, he’ll worry about it all day. It’s like watching footage of his jumps. It does no good for others to insist he’s perfect when he has video evidence of all the ways he needs to improve.

“Um, about last night. I’m sorry it…went the way it did.”

There’s static on the line, and then, in the background, the honking of a horn.

“I’m sorry,” Yuuri continues. “I’m…not very experienced at these things? I, just, um. I’ll get better.” He bites his lip. “But, um. Sorry.”

“Wow.” Victor’s voice is hushed. “So…”

“It’s okay. You don’t have to say anything. I just wanted to…you know. Apologize.”

“I want to say something.”

Yuuri’s heart drops. This can’t be good. Victor wants to say something. He’s reconsidered. It’s going to—

“But I’m kind of in a car on the way to the airport, and I’m not alone. Maybe we can talk about that tonight?” Victor lets the last word slide suggestively off his tongue.

Yuuri needs to focus on something other than sex. He shakes his head. A flurry of Russian bursts out in the background, and Victor laughs.

“Yes, I really _can’t_ say anything,” Victor says cheerfully. “Mila is here and she’s a baby. We have to keep things squeaky-clean—ow, Mila, stop it, no give that—”

It sounds suspiciously like a scuffle—the rustle of fabric, a grunt, a loud, staticky noise, like someone grabbing a phone right on top of the built-in microphone.

“I am not a baby,” says a Russian-tinged woman’s voice, clearly and loudly in Yuuri’s ear. “And I do _not_ need anything to be squeaky-clean. I just wanted to tell you that I do not know what you did to him, but Victor has not been this annoying in _years.”_

“Hey,” Yuuri says sharply. “Victor’s not annoying.”

“ _Yes,_ he is. Don’t tell lies. Just keep doing—whatever it is you’re doing. Here—” Her voice fades mid-word, and she spouts something in Russian.

“See?” Victor’s voice, suddenly loud and close, seems almost breathless. “Even my rinkmates approve of us.”

“I approve of _Yuuri,”_ he can hear Mila saying. “ _You_ don’t deserve him.”

There’s another spurt of Russian. Yuuri’s head is spinning.

Victor laughs. “Rude! Say it in English, or don’t say it at all. _Yakov_ won’t make me stop. He thinks it’s great.”

“Yakov doesn’t think anything is great.”

“Yakov, tell Yuuri you’re delighted.”

There’s a long pause. “Sure,” a gravelly voice finally says. “I could not be more pleased.”

He sounds like he’s agreeing to a picnic meal of poisoned meat taken in a radioactive park during a typhoon.

“There you are,” Victor says. “Everyone likes you! We’ll talk again tonight, yes? I might not be home until late your time, but… Okay if I call then?”

Yuuri just sighs and shakes his head, still utterly baffled. “They won’t let me skate. What else am I supposed to do?”

“Until then.” Victor hangs up.

Yuuri attends the exhibition. There’s good-natured laughter and applause when they announce that Yuuri can’t skate because of an injury. Probably nobody wanted to see him in any event, so it’s no loss to them.

Yuuri’s phone sits in his pocket like a lead weight.

Phichit texts about his wrist.

Celestino tells Yuuri to take it easy until the doctor clears him.

Annoying Aki sends him congratulations. _Why didn’t you tell me you were in Sapporo? I would have come up! Just b/c I graduated last year doesn’t mean I don’t want to see you. Need someone to help you nurse your injury?_

The accompanying winky face is horrifying.

None of these people are Victor.

Victor wants to talk to Yuuri about what happened last night.

Victor knows that Yuuri is a dork.

 _Yuuri_ is going to turn into Victor’s Annoying Aki—that guy who bothers him constantly because of one—okay, fine, _three_ —little lapses in judgment.

Every time his phone buzzes, his heart accelerates. It feels something like that junk mail he used to get in America: You may already have been broken up with!

After his fourth text from Phichit, Yuuri shuts off his phone

#

When Yuuri finally turns his phone on again late that night, he has nineteen messages. One text-message spam that he deletes instantly. The other eighteen…

_Hi Yuuri, I’m back! Done with exhibition stuff yet?_

_I didn’t feel like cooking so I had yogurt when I got home. I don’t really like yogurt, but it’s good for you (bleah) and Makkachin loves it and I hate to deprive her._

_You’re not back to your room yet? Probably interviews and stuff. It’s fine. I can wait._

_But you’ll probably be tired when you come back._

_I hate time differences. Petition to abolish them. Petition to move you here._

_Yuuri, it’s six PM your time. I hope you’re having a good dinner somewhere, and aren’t surrounded by JSF people the whole time. What are you having?_

_Yuuri, where are you?_

_Oh, no, I’m being too whiny, am I being too whiny? If you were as exhausted after last night as I was you probably probably needed to take a nap. Naps are good!_

_Yuuri._

_Yuuri?_

_Yuuri, I was quiet for two whole hours. That’s a lot for me._

_Yuuri._

_Yuuri?_

_Yuuri!_

_I’m kind of worried about what you said this morning._

_Also, I want to say good night to you._ ;)

_You’re not even reading these, though. Are you okay? Did something happen? Is it your wrist? Did you lose your phone? Is some terrible not-Yuuri reading these instead? I will fight you, not-Yuuri!_

_Just call me and tell me how your day went when you have the chance, okay? I miss your voice._

Yuuri exhales. He _doesn’t_ have any more texts from Phichit, but he still hears Phichit’s voice. _Yuuri, sometimes you can be oblivious._

Okay. Okay. He takes a deep breath. His mind has been running away with him. He knows that happens from time to time, and not being able to skate has made it worse. But even he, in this state, can tell that these texts are not Victor’s attempt to wind up a suddenly unwanted relationship. He just has to call. Talk.

And Victor _likes_ him.

It’s not a tragedy. It’s the thing he’s been literally yearning for his entire life.

But he was able to resist everything else—Victor’s beauty, his charm, his skating. He’s managed to hold a corner of his heart back from those things, safe despite all his other vulnerabilities. Victor’s like pulls at Yuuri’s carefully constructed barriers.

 _Come hither,_ Victor asks, and what could be more intrusive than the request to reveal himself?

While he’s sitting in his hotel room—his last night here before he has to go back to his dismal quarters near university—trying to work up the nerve to respond, his phone rings.

_Victor._

For a second, he thinks about not answering, but Victor is calling, and, well… Might as well get this over with. He shuts off the lights, hides under the blankets, and accepts the call.

“Yuuri,” Victor says, “Yuuri, I’m so glad I saw you finally reading my messages. Why didn’t you answer my texts today? Did you forget your phone?”

“It was blowing up because of the gold medal thing,” Yuuri says, and this is partially the truth, “and the injured thing. I turned it off.”

“Yuuri, how could you? You made me suffer so much. Next time, just block everyone but me.”

Yuuri can’t help himself. He smiles. It almost hurts that Victor can still make him grin. “I’m sorry, Victor. I’m really sorry.”

“Make it up to me,” Victor presses. His voice drops. “What are you wearing right now, Yuuri?”

Yuuri’s jaw drops. That’sVictor’s sexy voice. Victor’s using his sexy voice on Yuuri. “You—you actually want to know that _now?”_

“Oh.” There is a long pause. “Right. I… You wanted to talk about last night.”

Yuuri doesn’t want to talk about last night. He wants to crawl into a hole and die. He heaps a pillow on top of his head until he can’t see anything at all. Speaking is like ripping duct-tape off his leg hair, but he has to get it out.

“I’m so sorry about last night,” Yuuri blurts. “I don’t know what I was thinking. I can’t believe what came out of my mouth. I’m so embarrassed.”

Silence reigns for a moment. Then: “Yuuri, what are you embarrassed about?”

“I mean, have you ever had anyone lapse into an anatomy lesson during sex before?”

“No, but—”

“What kind of idiot flirts with _muscles?”_ Yuuri buries his head in the mattress. “And I know, I know, I’m such a dork. I’m so sorry, I just—I wasn’t thinking, I don’t have a lot of experience with this sort of thing, I just—it was the first thing that came to mind, and—”

“Yuuri, wait. You think that last night was not what I wanted?”

“I know it’s not,” Yuuri says, “but—I’m just, I don’t know what to say half the time, and I just, my mouth, I don’t know what my mouth was doing, it took off, and why am I trying to pretend it will change? I say things like that all the time. It’s not going to get better. That’s who I am. I’m a dork. I should… I should have told you. I’m sorry if you feel like I misled you.”

There is silence on the other end.

“I’m sorry,” Yuuri says again into that silence. “I…know you somehow got the impression at Sochi that I was cool or something? I’m, um, really not.”

“Yuuri.”

“I understand if you don’t want to talk to me again. It’s okay. I just—if you feel that way, don’t try to let me down gently. It will hurt more. Just—just say it, okay? Say it now.” Yuuri is practically shouting into his mattress. He’s pulled the blanket above him like cowl, pulled it so tight his ears press against his skull.

“You…” Victor pauses.

Yuuri wishes he could see him. Then he imagines the light in Victor’s eyes fading to cold disdain, and he’s grateful that he can’t.

“You want me to be honest?”

“Yes.” Yuuri braces himself for the inevitable.

“Fine. Here is the truth. Last night was the best sex I’ve ever had in my life, and you weren’t even here.”

“Um.” Yuuri swallows, shaking his head, waiting for his inner ears to pop, waiting for his world to stop spinning off kilter. “Um. What?”

“I’m sorry,” Victor says, “I’m so sorry that it wasn’t as good for you.”

Yuuri is not quite processing what he’s hearing. The words all make sense. They form complete sentences.

Victor thinks that it _wasn’t_ good for Yuuri?

“No, it was—it was so good, but, Victor… That’s not it. It’s… I’m such a dork.”

“Yeah,” Victor says. “I noticed.”

Yuuri grimaces. “And you thought I was cool!”

“I admit, when we were in Sochi… I had the idea you were.”

“Plus, you’re so experienced…”

“Oh. Dear. How many people do you think I’ve had sex with?”

“Um…” Even if Victor didn’t start until he was eighteen, which seems unreasonably late for a man whose sixteen-year-old self based a costume on bondage and lingerie, that’s almost ten years of being in the limelight, ten years of Victor catching someone’s eye and crooking his finger, knowing that whoever he wanted would come to him. Given the careful tone of Victor’s voice, Yuuri is probably overestimating. He divides his number by two. “A dozen?”

“Three,” Victor says on a laugh. “Three people, not three dozen. That’s including you, and some people wouldn’t include you, but if we don’t include you, then it’s one and that’s embarrassing.”

Yuuri yelps. “ _I’ve_ had sex with more people than you?”

“Duh,” Victor says. “I mean, that was obvious to me from the moment we danced at the banquet? I don’t have a lot of spare time, honestly. And from experience, I um, have a bad tendency to confuse physical affection with emotional attachment? I…end up being really careful as a result.”

“Oh.” Yuuri isn’t sure how to respond to that. Is Victor warning him off? “Is. Is that going to be a problem for us? Should we, um, do you want to…not…?”

“Too late,” Victor says cheerily. “I got emotionally attached to you way before last night, so there’s no use worrying about it any more.”

“Oh.” It takes Yuuri a moment to rearrange his mental box of Victor.

Victor Nikiforov has apparently only had sex with three people, one of whom is Yuuri. Victor Nikiforov did not hate what happened last night. It was, apparently, the best sex of his life, which is something that Yuuri cannot remotely wrap his mind around.

His last partners must have been utterly incompetent. It’s the only possibility that Yuuri can come up with.

He scrambles to make sense of his mental landscape. “But, but! You said I was a dork last night.”

There’s another pause. Then Victor laughs. “Was I wrong?”

“Noooo.”

“Did you think I didn’t _like_ that?”

“I…yes?”

“Wow,” Victor says. “That was…some miscommunication. Yuuri, I love it.”

He loves it. Yuuri’s head hurts. He _loves_ it.

This is even harder to understand than Victor mistakenly feeling some positive emotions towards Yuuri.

Victor loved Yuuri telling him about muscles in Japanese?

Apparently so. Apparently, Victor Nikiforov, world famous heart throb—who is somehow less sexually experienced than Yuuri—loves the fact that Yuuri is a dork.

For one moment, nothing makes sense. The entire world is a lie.

Then suspicion dawns.

“Victor,” Yuuri says slowly. “Is it possible that you are also a dork?”

 _“Yuuuuuuri.”_ Victor lets out a sputter of laughter. “How can you claim that you’re my fan if you don’t _know_ that already?”

“You seem so cool!” Yuuri says. “And sophisticated! And urbane! You definitely seem urbane. How are you a dork?”

“Yuuri, I won four world championships in a row! I have an app for skating! Nobody this successful is ever really cool! I just occasionally pretend to be cool on TV so that people buy things they don’t need! Did you think I was making fun of you? After we had sex?”

“I’m sorry, I—”

“Yuuri, no. Don’t apologize. I don’t want you to feel badly. I like you so much.” Victor says it. He just says it like that, and Yuuri _feels_ that compliment as if it’s a tangible thing, spreading through his body. He could get drunk off that kind of praise.

“I should, though.” Yuuri swallows, trying to get his mind in order. “It’s my fault. My brain. It—”

He cuts himself off. He doesn’t want to talk about his mental weakness with Victor. Victor likes him. So much, he said. Victor likes him so much.

“Phichit,” he says instead. “Do you know Phichit Chulanont?”

“Um.”

“He’s a former rinkmate. He says that I’m oblivious.”

Victor huffs. “That’s not very nice.”

Yuuri shrugs under the covers. “I only figured out you liked me last night, so… It’s probably true.”

“Really?” Victor says this like he’s actually shocked. “Wow. This is a first. Nobody has ever accused me of being too subtle before.”

“Well.” Yuuri swallows. “That’s me. Nobody.”

There’s a moment of silence—not quite awkward, not quite comfortable. Yuuri shifts his hips, feeling his blanket slide over them.

“This may be rude,” Victor finally says, “but I don’t believe that. At least not like you said. We FaceTime half our conversations, and you smile when I complement you and you blush when I tell you you’re beautiful, and you…” Victor pauses. “You don’t flirt like someone who thinks your like is unrequited.”

“Oh.” Yuuri feels his face heat. “You do like me, don’t you. A…lot. I…guess.” He rubs his eyes, not that it matters, because he can’t see a thing, hidden as he is.

“And you clearly knew I was into you at the banquet. You caught me staring and you winked at me and just _gestured_ at me _,_ like _what are you waiting for? Get out here and dance with me.”_

Yuuri doesn’t remember that at all.

“I don’t think you’re oblivious,” Victor says slowly. “I think it’s like your skating. You know, deep down, that you’re beautiful. You’ve known for weeks that I’m really, really into you. If your…um, friend, thinks you’re just oblivious, he’s not very observant.”

Yuuri feels transparent. “It’s…” _Complicated,_ he almost says. He breathes out, and when he talks, he lowers his voice. “It’s easier if everyone thinks I’m oblivious, that I just don’t notice if people like me? And I…I guess I don’t? But I _do_. It’s like my brain doesn’t notice, but the rest of my body knows.”

He’s not making any sense.

“Sure,” Victor says, as if Yuuri’s irrationality is reasonable. “It’s like doing twizzles. I had to learn how to do them with my head at first, but now, I don’t even know how I do them. I just do them.”

“Yes, exactly, like that!” Yuuri clutches the phone. “Except I feel like I learn things backwards. I think, I think maybe I did know? That you liked me? I just knew it in my hands and my heart and my stomach. Just not my head.”

Victor doesn’t say anything.

“That sounds stupid,” Yuuri admits. “It’s just… I guess it’s easier if I feel like I have nothing to lose?”

“Were you worrying about losing me?”

“They wouldn’t let me skate,” Yuuri explains. “I worried about _everything.”_

That doesn’t make sense, either.

But Victor just clicks his tongue knowingly. “I hate that. Yakov keeps telling me to focus on this season and stop choreographing programs for next year, but that _is_ my way of focusing.”

“Right? And it’s my _stupid_ luck that the entire JSF is here to monitor me this week.” Yuuri is overheating under the covers. He peaks out through a crack. The room is dark, but not as dark as it was with a blanket over his head. A sliver of light seeps in through a slit in the curtains; the clock spills unearthly blue illumination along the top of the desk.

“So,” Victor says. There’s something in his tone, something warm and velvety. “No physical activity, is that what they’re saying? Of course you’re feeling off. And what a shame. I’d hoped to, um, assist you in some low-impact aerobic exercise.”

It’s not like Yuuri had specifically asked the doctor about phone sex. It’s not like they would know, no matter what he did tonight. Still…

He wants Victor. He wants him so much, over and over, and he can’t let himself get used to having him just any time his dick gets hard.

“Yeah,” he mutters. “No physical activity.”

It’s stupid. He’s too hot, and his blood has started moving at just the thought of having Victor. He _needs_ this, needs to get his heart racing, needs to feel his muscles tense and tense and tense and then relax.

He can’t let himself need Vitor. He already likes him too much. Needing him is crossing a line.

 _Last night was the best sex I’ve ever had,_ he can still hear Victor saying, and it’s not safe, not safe to want to hear it again, to want to do better. It’s not safe to want someone so much.

“It’s okay,” Victor replies. “It was selfish of me to make you do that last night. I mean, you practically showed me all your bruises. You should rest.”

“Yeah.” Yuuri inhales. “I should. It’s been a weird, long day.”

“Rest and get better.” There’s a softness, a sweetness in Victor’s tone. “I’ll talk to you tomorrow?”

Yuuri shuts his eyes. “Any time you want, my Victor. Every time you want.”

Victor makes a little noise, something like pleasure. Yuuri shuts his phone off before he hears any more. He stares up at the ceiling, exhausted and restless all at once.

He thinks of Victor, telling Yuuri that he likes him, that he’s not really oblivious. He thinks of Victor laughing and saying that he’s a dork. He remembers Victor saying that the best sex he’s ever had has been with Yuuri, and realizes that he never told Victor that the same thing was true for him.

Victor has always given him the best orgasms, even before Yuuri knew him.

He thinks of Victor swearing hotly, fluently, last night, and after a moment, his dick picks up interest.

Yuuri has known that Victor likes him. He’s known this in his body, his hands, his heart. But it was easy when he told himself in his mind that Victor might walk away at any second, that all he wants is sex. Now, as he’s stroking his own dick and thinking of Victor’s voice, he knows it’s not true.

Reality is so much harder than the lies he told himself.

Reality is Victor liking _this._ Reality is their easy conversation. It’s trusting Victor and becoming friends and liking him so, so much.

Reality is being liked in return.

Reality is so good that it almost physically hurts to think of losing Victor, because once Yuuri acknowledges that this is _real,_ that he has a shot at everything he has ever dreamed of, he finally understands precisely how much he has at stake.

It was easy when he thought he had nothing.

Now he has Victor, and he doesn’t know how he’ll manage the heartbreak if he has to lose him.

Yuuri wants him, he wants him, he wants him so much, and Victor doesn’t need to know how deep that want goes. He strokes himself now, not holding back. He doesn’t have to hold back now that Victor knows. Because he’s stupid, he imagines Victor whispering in his ear.

_Beautiful, Yuuri. Lovely, Yuuri._

God. Oh, God. Yuuri’s whole body spasms, as if Victor were actually here here, as if he was inside Yuuri now. He can almost feel the phantom presence of his cock. Yuuri’s nerves catch flame. He is almost incandescent with desire.

“Victor.” The word feels like it’s been ripped out of his throat. “Oh, God. Victor. Victor. Victor.”

His orgasm rips through him, disrupting all higher brain function. His cock jerks in his hand, hard, pumping semen across his chest.

He comes back to his senses slowly—to his cum-splattered grip on his softening dick, to the sound of silence in his room instead of Victor breathing on the other end of the line. This happened. This really just happened.

It’s so much lonelier this way.

But at least this way he doesn’t have to come to terms with Victor’s liking, and Yuuri’s yearning.

Yuuri comes twice more in the next forty minutes before he can finally fall asleep.

#

He’s still not allowed to skate the next morning, but at least he has things to _do,_ things beside looking pretty in the stands at the exhibition.

His day starts early, with a brisk walk. He checks out of his hotel and schleps his stuff back to his room near the university via public transportation. There follows a Skype call to Celestino. They go over his skates at All Japan—the good, the bad, the incredibly ugly. They spend far too much time on the good, in Yuuri’s opinion.

“Before we go on,” Celestino says, “I want to talk to you about your plans for the remainder of this season. When we started gearing up for this fall, I asked you what you wanted to accomplish. Do you remember what you said?”

Yuuri bends to rest his forehead against the desk. “I said I wanted to make the Grand Prix Final,” he mutters into the wood in embarrassment. “And look how that turned out.”

“You _did_ make the Grand Prix Final.”

“Well, but…”

“That’s what I want to talk about.” Celestino folds his arms and fixes Yuuri with a look so stern that he can feel the heat even over Skype. “You _said_ you wanted to make the Grand Prix Final. You _meant_ that you wanted to medal at the Grand Prix Final.”

Yuuri growls in frustration. “It should have been obvious I didn’t want to be _humiliated.”_

Celestino ignores this. “If we’re going to make goals together for the second half of the season, I need to know what you _really_ want, not just what you _say_ you want.”

Yuuri swallows and thinks about the things he knows in his gut and not his head. Phichit would call him oblivious.

“I’d like to do well,” he says softly.

“Yuuri.” It’s not quite a reprimand.

Celestino is right. The things Yuuri wants—the things he scarcely lets himself dream about late at night—will always stay out of reach if he doesn’t name them in order to reach for them.

“Okay.” He exhales, straightening, stretching in the confines of his narrow room. “I want to make the podium at Four Continents.”

It sounds so arrogant, laying it out there like that. But nobody but Celestino is here to judge him.

“Good.” Celestino nods. “That’s a very reasonable goal, you know. You were top six in the world going into the Grand Prix Final, and half the competitors there won’t be at Four Continents. There’s no reason you can’t get a medal.”

Reasonable. Celestino thinks that earning a medal at Four Continents is _reasonable._

“What about worlds?” Celestino asks. “What do you want to accomplish there?”

Words is more complicated. Yuuri’s heart thumps heavily in his chest, a sure indication that he doesn’t want to admit what he really wants.

“Do you…” He bites his lip and makes himself look Celestino’s Skype-self in the virtual eyes. “Do you think it’s too much to say I want to make the podium at worlds?”

“This isn’t about me. What do you think?” Celestino counters. “When _you_ imagine yourself at worlds, in the best case scenario, what do _you_ dream of happening?”

Oh, that… That’s not fair. Four Continents is one thing; Yuuri can think rationally about it. But _Victor_ will be at worlds, and so many of Yuuri’s dreams are wrapped up in him. More, now that they’re…whatever they are.

Victor will be at worlds.

It was never _Victor’s_ dream to have one of his competitors stand at the highest rank of the podium and introduce himself.

It was Yuuri’s.

And just because he knows more about Victor now doesn’t mean he’s given up that dream. He still wants to beat Victor. Perhaps _especially_ now. He wants to win, to out-skate him, to be so beautiful that Victor can’t possibly look away.

He wants the entire world to see that Victor can, and should, belong to him. He wants it so much that he can scarcely admit it to himself.

The thing he wants makes everything more complicated—he likes Victor, he cares about Victor, Victor is telling him things and giving him help and…

And Victor is thinking of retiring. This may be his last chance to skate against him.

Yuuri inhales and nods. “I want to beat Victor.”

It’s the first time he’s ever said those words aloud. They sound loud and scary.

“I want to beat Victor,” he repeats.

Celestino just nods. “I know.”

“How—what—”

“Yuuri, you’ve obviously been practicing a quad flip and not telling me about it,” Celestino says. “You don’t learn Victor Nikiforov’s signature move without gunning for Victor Nikiforov. Now, tell me the truth. What else have you been practicing without my knowledge?”

“I. Um.” Yuuri swallows. “The…um. The quad loop? This is stupid. I can’t land either of them with anything like consistency yet. It’s ridiculous to think this is possible.”

“Interesting,” Celestino says. “I would have guessed the Lutz. Victor doesn’t have the quad loop yet.”

Victor is landing the quad loop thirty-five percent of the time in practice, Yuuri doesn’t say. Yuuri has a lot of catching up to do.

“Yeah,” Yuuri bites his lip. “He doesn’t have the quad loop yet. That was the point of my learning it. I want to ratify it before him.”

Celestino just nods, as if this is all possible. “Victor has more consistency, more finesse. What’s your plan to beat him?”

Yuuri exhales slowly. _Plan_ is such a big word. _Plan_ is concrete, not fluffy cotton candy. So far, he’s _dreamed_ and _fantasized._

“Well, that’s just it. He has more consistency, more finesse,” Yuuri says slowly. “I bet he’s trying a quad loop. I mean, logically speaking…he has to be practicing it, right?”

“Sure.”

“He’s more consistent.” Yuuri’s spent so much time thinking about Victor. He knows his weaknesses, as insignificant as they are. “That means he’s more _safe._ He’s not going to put a quad loop in his program until he knows he can land it.”

“True.”

“That gives me a tiny window of opportunity.” Yuuri holds up thumb and forefinger, millimeters apart. “Because—this is a stupid advantage, but I’ll take anything I have—I’m _used_ to putting jumps I can barely land in my programs. All I need to do is have two really good days. Two really good days, and I can beat him.”

“Great.” Celestino nods. “You’re going to need to push yourself, you know, harder than you’ve ever pushed. That means you need to be really, really careful to avoid injury. No skating with sprained wrists. Understand?”

Yuuri nods glumly.

“Good. Then let’s make a schedule. If you’re going to have a hope at nailing those jumps for worlds in two and a half months, we need to work on them, and work hard.”

It takes about half an hour for them to establish schedules and guidelines. Yuuri ends up with a page of notes, detailing his work week by week. Celestino sends him a link to a new set of plyometrics exercises that he’s going to have to do. He admonishes him that he needs to stop practicing quads when he’s alone on the rink because what would he do if he hurt himself and nobody was there?

Yuuri makes words that sound like promises not to do that.

At the end, he is in possession of a single sheet of paper, lined with goals and dates: a concrete plan to maybe, possibly defeat the man he is hopelessly enamored of.

“Yuuri, one last thing.”

“Yes, Celestino?”

“It’s about you and Victor.”

A cold weight settles in Yuuri’s stomach. “Me and Victor? What about me and Victor?”

“Tch. I abandoned the banquet at the Grand Prix Final for the hotel bar after the first hour, but I have ears. I still heard the gossip.”

“Um.” Yuuri’s head is spinning. “There’s gossip?”

“Just a few jokes among the coaches. But I noticed Victor tweeting about your free skate. You two are talking, aren’t you?”

“You noticed Victor doing _what?”_

“You understand that your strategy depends on the element of surprise right?”

Yuuri already has his phone out. He installed the Twitter app a year ago, at Phichit’s behest, but he doesn’t use it, not to do anything except check Victor’s twitter feed. He navigates to it, and…

“Oh, no,” he breathes.

“Yuuri?” Celestino waves a hand on the Skype screen, and Yuuri reluctantly turns his phone over. “Are you listening to me? I don’t care what kind of relationship the two of you have—that’s entirely up to you. In fact, it’s because of…that possible future relationship that I think you should do this. You’re both top competitors, and your strategy depends on the element of surprise. Do _not_ tell him you’re training these jumps. Do you understand?”

Yuuri does understand. He doesn’t want to, but… “Coach…”

“I’m not asking you to lie. If you want, you can even tell him that you’re working on things that you don’t want to talk about for strategic reasons. He’s as competitive as you are, and he’ll understand. Just talk about other things, okay? You’re both young. I’m sure you’ll think of something else you have in common.”

This sort of concealment would be one thing if they chatted twice a month. But they don’t. For a moment, Yuuri thinks of telling Celestino about his morning runs with Victor, about how they’ve rearranged their schedules so they can watch each other's footage and eat together and…and…and…

They’re just getting started on the _and._ Yuuri is apparently the best _and_ that Victor has ever had. The _and_ is none of Celestino’s business. Celestino thinks he’s just asking for Yuuri’s discretion.

But what he wants is for Yuuri to keep silent about his own strategy with someone who is holding nothing back. Lie or not, it doesn’t sit right with Yuuri.

Still. Yuuri has so few advantages over Victor…

“I understand,” he says. He doesn’t want to, but he does.

#

Yuuri looks at Victor’s Twitter feed again on his way to an appointment with a professor. Victor’s own tweets are innocuous enough—a congratulations to Yuuri on being the second person in the entire world to land a quad flip in competition (silly, because Yuuri didn’t land it), along with a link to Yuuri’s program for his followers.

That must have been gone up sometime after they got off the phone last night. Victor has hashtagged this with #cantwaitforworlds.

The responses, though… They set Yuuri’s teeth on edge. After careful consideration, Yuuri figures out how to start a tweet and stares at the blank screen, trying to figure out how to use his 140 characters.

_First, thank you all so much for your support. I know I did not perform up to expectations at the Grand Prix Final and All Japan, and will try hard to reach the next level at 4CC. I will try not to disappoint you again!_

That tweet was easy—just acknowledge the truth and move on. He posts a version of this in English—that takes two tweets, not just one—and then taps his fingers against his lips, contemplating how to word the next ones. This might take a little while…

_Second, people have been tagging me and Victor in an argument about my under-rotated quad flip and claiming that I “did it better.” This is disrespectful to both me and Victor._

That’s a good start. He hits tweet, and is momentarily grateful that Phichit taught him to thread his tweets.

_I realize there’s a lot of sarcasm on the internet, but Victor is not just the first person to ratify a quad flip. He is, and always will be, the standard to beat._

There, that sounds gracious, and also not like he is having phone sex with Victor.

_His average GOE on his quad flip this season has been an amazing +2.42. I have a lot of work ahead of me if I ever expect to come close to his level. Please be kind to us both as skaters._

He nods. That should do it, he hopes. An acknowledgement that people are talking, a mention of the self-evident reality of the situation, and a request for civility. That sort of stuff should work, even on the internet, right?

He checks his replies, hoping that he’s knocked sense into people.

There’s one right at the top. _LMFAO nobody cares about figure skating shit like GEO. It’s about your butts, your butt is better than Victor’s, that’s the joke, that’s why it’s funny._

A bright anger arises, and Yuuri finds himself mashing his phone keyboard.

_1) It’s GOE, not GEO, you idiot. 2) I could search the whole world and nobody’s butt would be better than Victor’s._

He hits send.

It takes exactly one second for Yuuri to realize that he is not safely ensconced under the nikiforovfan17983 pseudonym at the moment, that he tweeted this under his actual name with the actual blue check next to it that Phichit made him get because otherwise nobody would believe that this barely used account was really Yuuri Katsuki and _oh my god, no_.

He lets out a scream, scrambling to his timeline in desperation. Oh, no. No no no no. He did _not_ just announce to the entire internet that he thinks Victor has the best butt. How do you delete tweets? It’s not obvious—he hits items randomly, which just means that he first likes his own tweet, and then accidentally retweets it.

He is apparently not alone in liking it. By the time he figures out how to delete it, there are hundreds of likes, and just about as many retweets.

His heart pounds heavily. There. Gone. Whew. Crises averted. _This_ is why he never uses social media.

Tentatively he checks his replies. 20+, Twitter says.

That’s too many. He doesn’t want to look.

With any luck, Victor didn’t see it at all. Yuuri slides his phone in his pocket and pretends that nothing happened.

He has a professor to talk to anyway.

#

_Yuuri, Yuuri. You don’t tweet for four months, and then you tell the entire internet that you like Victor’s butt? I’m so proud!_

_Agh, Phichit, I can’t believe you managed to see that while it was still up. I deleted the tweet! That means it doesn’t count, right?_

_Uh… Buddy, I have some bad news for you about this thing called a screenshot. I assume you were just freaking out because Victor tweeted about you? He must have caught the program after he heard you did a quad flip._

_Sure. I guess something like that._

_Yuuri, I know you have anxiety and shit and I would like to be supportive, but if you do not at least have a plan for how you are going to try and tap that ass at worlds after thinking about it nonstop for however many decades it has been, my hamsters are disowning you. Take it from the best: wear your fuck me jeans. They worked for Craig and they’ll work for Victor._

_Please don’t talk to me about Victor. Wait. What did you mean, screenshot? Did someone screenshot my tweet? Obviously if I deleted it, I don’t want people to see it! Does nobody care about privacy or kindness any longer? Who would do that kind of thing?_

_*ducks* gotta run so much to do LOL ttyl_

_PHICHIT-KUN, SO HELP ME._

#

“Hi, Yuuri,” Victor says late that night. “How was your day?”

“Terrible.”

“Oh? Want to tell me about it?”

Victor’s voice is sexy without even trying, and Yuuri’s mind, so conditioned to want him, perks up with a faint tinge of arousal.

“It’s the last day of me not skating.”

“Does this mean you were cleared to go tomorrow?”

“Yes.” Yuuri sighs. “I guess it was okay, because I needed to go talk to this professor I’m doing some stuff with, and I have a make-up exam tomorrow and I needed to study, and—”

“You can’t taunt me with ‘doing some stuff with a professor’ and just leave it there. What kind of stuff?”

“Oh, I mean, just… Stuff. Um, he’s doing a, um, longitudinal study on exercise economy and substrate utilization in various athletes, and I helped him with collecting some of the figure skating stuff, so we had to talk about some of the data?”

“A what on what with what?”

“Agh, it’s boring, just a…long study, looking at the same people over time, and…basically measuring whether getting better at skating effects what percentage of carbohydrates versus fat skaters burn while exercising? I mean, I’m just getting like a fifth author credit on the paper. It’s not that interesting.”

“Yuuri! That’s exciting!”

 _Victor_ is exciting. Even just hearing him say _what on what with what_ makes Yuuri’s pulse beat just a little faster. Yuuri, by contrast…

He shakes his head. “I mean, _I_ think it’s kind of cool, but really it was just a lot of…like, convincing Celestino to let me ask people at the rink if we could…measure…stuff…” Yuuri trails off. “And it’s not like there are interesting findings, either. It was a…lot of data collection, and, um, nothing’s statistically significant in the figure skating section, so… conclusion, need more funding to cover more figure skaters.”

Victor ignores the part about how the entire project got nowhere. “You’re going to be an author? That’s amazing!”

“It’s just a stupid paper!”

“But it’s so cool,” Victor insists, and Yuuri is fairly certain at this point that Victor’s definition of _cool_ is basically _not cool_. “I knew you were smart, but you’re really smart! What does your professor think about your figure skating?”

“I, um, think he watched the program the other night, but I don’t think he thought I was very good.”

“What? Don’t listen to him. He has bad taste.”

Yuuri looks upward trying to steel himself against the onslaught of Victor’s casually devastating compliments. “About halfway through our talk, he said I was wasted on figure skating, so… I dunno. He keeps telling me I should apply to these PhD programs, so he probably doesn’t see much future in me skating.”

Victor makes an annoyed noise. “Yuuri, I don’t think he meant… Never mind that. You have to _tell_ me these things, Yuuri. How else will I know how to boast about you to my rinkmates? A PhD? That’s big.”

“I mean, not really, anyone can be encouraged to apply to PhD programs.”

“Not me, I never went to college.”

“Yeah, you were just building an _app,”_ Yuuri points out, “and winning gold medals. Besides, I looked into the requirements. There’s no way I can skate and do a graduate degree and besides, my parents own an onsen in this little out-of-the-way town. There’s nothing I could do with a PhD in physiology there, and the idea of not going home again…” He trails off, suddenly heartsick. “I miss home. I want to go home.”

“Oh.” Victor’s enthusiasm is almost instantly dimmed.

Shit. He remembers suddenly why this is a dangerous choice of subject.

“Forget I said that. It’s stupid to even whine about that to you, when you…”

“When I what?” Victor’s voice is softly dangerous, and for some reason, it makes Yuuri want to hold him more tightly.

“It’s okay. We don’t have to talk about your sister if you don’t want.”

“Oh.” Victor sighs, and there’s such a weight in that one exhalation that Yuuri wants to hug him. “It’s… It’s not what it looks like.”

“You mean you didn’t get in a massive fight with the sister who practically raised you five years ago? You didn’t split and never speak to each other again?” Yuuri frowns dubiously. Vasilisa Nikiforova had been a constant in her brother’s kiss and cry for almost a decade. She was twelve years older than Victor—he’d been a bit of a miracle baby for his parents—and she’d skated some herself when she was younger.

For a while, she’d been his coach, his confidante, and his best friend. Victor had said exactly that in an interview when he was sixteen.

Then they’d argued. Publicly. Acrimoniously.

“Are you guys talking again?”

Victor just sighs. “There was no fight. It was a lie. It was just… Vasha got married and her wife had the babies. I got popular. They didn’t want to raise their twins with the paparazzi hanging out in the bushes waiting to see if I dropped by. We faked the whole fight so they’d eventually leave her alone. We still talk.”

Yuuri’s head spins.

“It just makes the inside of my head feel really weird,” Victor whispers. “Because we’re still supposed to be fighting, right? So people try to suck up to me by badmouthing her? I can’t say anything about it either, or the paparazzi will go bother her and ask if we’re reconciling.”

“Oh.” Yuuri swallows and thinks this through. “And… You can’t go home, either. Or they’ll know.”

Victor makes a noncommittal sound. “It’s not like it’s _home_ home. Her twins are seven now, and I barely know them, and we talk, and I don’t know. I thought if the fight was fake, it couldn’t hurt me.”

Of all the things that Yuuri has learned about Victor, this is the one that makes him most want to reach through the phone and touch him. Victor, his Victor, isn’t a supremely confident angel who is immensely popular and always knows what to say.

“You’re the first person I’ve told,” Victor mutters. “Not even Yakov knows.”

 _His_ Victor is a mess, a beautiful mess, someone who googles advice and builds app and gives up his home so that his nieces can grow up with some semblance of privacy. He’s not a genius who effortlessly attains perfection; he works for it every day, every hour.

Yuuri thinks of Victor telling him that Makkachin is all he has. It hurts.

His Victor is not a dream of unattainable beauty. His Victor is sweet and kind and oh-so-attainable. Yuuri wants to attain him so badly.

“Is there such a thing as phone cuddles?” Victor asks.

“What, a phone that cuddles?”

“No. I mean like phone sex, but with cuddles instead.”

“I.” Yuuri flushes with want. “Um.”

“Because yesterday, after you hung up, I was—look, _tell_ me if I’m too clingy, I _know_ I’m too clingy—but I…I just wanted to be held a little?”

Yuuri imagines them wrapped around each other, Victor’s legs tangled in Yuuri’s, his chin tucked against Yuuri’s chest. He wanted Victor so much last night. He didn’t realize Victor would want it, too—at least not like this, on this deep a level. His heart aches.

“Please.” Yuuri’s throat feels hoarse. “Please be clingy.”

“Like that plastic stuff they put on food.”

“What?”

“I don’t know what it’s called!” Victor says a little more brightly. “The thin, sticky stuff you use to wrap up leftovers?”

“Plastic wrap? Cling film? It depends. Are we British or American?”

“I like ‘cling film,’ Victor says positively. “That’s me. I’m going to be your cling film.”

“Um.” Yuuri knew that Victor was charming, but he didn’t know he was charming like _this,_ effortlessly wrapping himself around Yuuri’s heart. “Okay.” Yuuri smiles helplessly. “That’s…good?”

“Not around your mouth and nostrils, that would be dangerous,” Victor amends.

“No, cling to me everywhere. I mean, this is fictional cling film, right? It’s breathable.”

Victor laughs, a long, joyful bubbling sound, and Yuuri laughs because he sounds happy again, and Victor laughs again, and it’s not that funny. It’s so not funny that it’s funny they’re laughing at all.

Yuuri swallows. He should say more. Should talk about kissing… But he wants Victor so much—for sex and cuddles and conversation. It’s so much that his emotion feels like it’s pushing the boundaries of his heart, nothing but Victor Victor Victor, squeezing the edges until there’s barely room for Yuuri in there.

“I should go,” he says.

Victor sighs reluctantly.

“I won’t tell anyone about your sister.”

“I know, my Yuuri. I trust you. Sleep well, okay? And imagine me wrapped around you like super-breathable cling film.”

Yuuri hangs up. It was easier when he thought that losing Victor was inevitable. If Victor had been who Yuuri had imagined all those years—that suave, confident, smooth, sexual stranger—it wouldn’t have been so bad. Yuuri would have liked him, respected his skating, enjoyed the sex, and sighed with regret when it was all over. He _expected_ to lose that Victor.

But truth be told… if that Victor hadn’t left Yuuri, Yuuri would have broken things off himself. They’d have been as mismatched a pair as an elephant and a clownfish.

But Victor, _this_ Victor, _Yuuri’s_ Victor, is a mess, a clingy mess, funny and dorky, sweet and surprising. He says whatever he’s thinking, gives up his home so his sister can have a life. This Victor is gorgeous and adorable.

Yuuri doesn’t want to lose this Victor.

 _What if you don’t have to?_ The thought is as frightening as the ice at the Grand Prix final before his free skate—a hypothetical hope that’s just waiting to be ground into dust with failure.

This, this opening up, is happening to them both at once. It’s real. It means something. Victor is as giddy and delighted as Yuuri. Victor trusts Yuuri, and Yuuri in turn is…

 _Do_ not _tell him that you’re training these jumps,_ Celestino said earlier that day. It had made Yuuri feel uncomfortable, so he’d shoved the admonition into the back of his head, forgetting it all evening.

He remembers it now.

His lip curls. Celestino doesn’t know that he and Victor spend hours going over footage together, that Victor has given Yuuri everything, all his secrets.

 _Victor won’t mind,_ the Celestino part of his brain insists, and Yuuri is…fairly certain that’s correct. Victor has taken everything Yuuri has given him in stride. He wasn’t upset in the slightest when Yuuri busted out his not exactly perfectly rotated quad flip. He’d been delighted, in fact.

Victor won’t mind.

Yuuri looks up at his darkened ceiling. They _are_ competitors after all. Whatever else they may be, they’re that. It’s not a big deal. He just doesn’t need to tell him. Then he’ll land a quad loop at worlds. No big deal. Victor won’t mind.

He nods once, certain he’s chosen the right path, and curls up in bed, willing himself to fall asleep.

He doesn’t.

His brain shimmers with emotion—guilt, annoyance, confusion, desire. He tries breathing slowly. He tries dismissing the thoughts.

None of these things help.

_Victor won’t mind._

Yuuri exhales and admits the truth. _Victor might not mind, but I will._

He gives up and finds his phone again.

“Yuuri? I was just about to leave for ballet. Is everything okay? Don’t you have a test tomorrow? You should be resting.”

“No,” Yuuri says. “I mean, yes, I have a test, and yes everything’s fine, it’s not bad, it’s just… Something happened today, and it’s bothering me. Can we talk about it?”

“Oh.” There’s a note of amusement in Victor’s voice. “That. I figured you didn’t want to discuss it. It’s okay. Twitter will blow over.”

“Oh. Um.” Yuuri had completely forgotten about Twitter. He finds himself blushing. “Twitter. Crap. I guess, um, you saw that?”

“Well, you did tag me.”

“I did?” Yuuri shakes his head. It’s too humiliating. “No, I don’t want to talk about Twitter, sorry. Can we, um, just forget that happened?”

“Sure,” Victor says all too easily. “What happens on Twitter stays on Twitter.”

“That… Um, I don’t use social media much, but that…doesn’t sound very accurate. Really?”

“No. Not really. Sometimes it spills over into Gawker articles and morning news segments and reporters calling me and asking me for comment.”

Oh, God. Yuuri is getting sidetracked. He’s going to lose his nerve. “Let’s just pretend I didn’t hear that. I wanted to tell you about something else entirely. Celestino and I set up my training program for the rest of the season.”

“Oh. Skating things. Sure, we can talk about your training program!”

Yuuri shuts his eyes. “I don’t exactly want to talk about my training program. I mean, we will, I’m sure. But… Look, Celestino asked me to set a goal for worlds, and I said I wanted to beat you.”

“Of course you do,” Victor says without an instant of hesitation. “You don’t feel badly about that, do you? We’re competitors. I want to beat you, too.”

Ha. That will require…less effort, substantially less desperation. It’s going to be easy for Victor to beat Yuuri.

“He told me not to tell you this part,” Yuuri says, “but I’m going to try and train both the flip and the loop.”

“Well, you _don’t_ have to tell me! Don’t, if… Or. Well. You just did, so… Too late now, I guess.”

“Victor.”

“I like surprises! I wouldn’t have minded!”

“ _I_ would have. We talk about…everything, and you tell me what you’re training, and, um, it just would have felt wrong, like I had an unfair advantage knowing about you, and you’ve been so generous, it just… I don’t know what I’m saying. It’s skating. It would make me sad not talking to you about skating.”

“Well, then,” Victor says softly. “Then you should definitely tell me. I don’t want you to be sad.”

It’s that easy.

Yuuri exhales.

“So,” Victor says in a suggestive voice. “What do you think about raising the stakes? What does the first person to ratify a quad loop get?”

Every desperate ounce of desire that Yuuri has been trying to suppress rises to the surface. The things Yuuri might have put on his treasure map flash through his mind. Victor in a thong and a garter belt and nothing else. Victor on his knees before Yuuri, his cheeks hollowed around Yuuri’s dick. Victor on all fours, looking over his shoulder. All of this shoots directly to his groin in a bolt of electric want.

“Victor. How am I supposed to get to sleep if I keep imagining whatever you come up with? I’m trying so hard not to beg you for sex.”

“What? Why would you try that?”

Yuuri exhales. “I mean… I… If you’re going to be cling film…” Yuuri sighs. “I’m worse? I…possibly haven’t mentioned the effect you have on me?”

He can almost hear Victor swallow. “I’d… I’d like to hear. If it’s okay.”

“Fine.” Yuuri shuts his eyes, and it’s okay, it’s okay to tell him now, his face is bright red but Victor can’t see it. “My refractory period is, um, ridiculously short? Especially where you’re involved.”

“Oh.” Victor breathes out this word. “Oh, oh.”

“One time,” Yuuri says, “I came five times in forty minutes from that magazine spread you did—” He realizes what he’s saying too late, clapping his hands over his mouth.

Victor lets out a scandalized breath. “Yuuri, were you sixteen?”

“It was, um, four months ago. So. I would have been twenty-two.”

“God, my refractory period is right around the forty minute mark.” Victor makes a noise. “Maybe less with you, the way you talk.”

“I’m sorry, it’s okay, honestly, you don’t need to worry about me. I don’t want to bother you and, the way I am, I’d bother you if I went to you half the time I was interested. And… I just, I don’t want…” He’s not sure what he wants. “I don’t want you to feel like you’re being used.”

Victor lets out a noise, something small and needy. “Yuuri. I…” He takes a deep inhalation, and Yuuri’s fists clutch. “I love the idea of being used.”

Yuuri inhales. He can’t let himself imagine it. _Dammit._ Now he can’t stop himself from imagining it. Now that Victor’s said it, his mind won’t let go of the idea of having Victor, over and over.

“Used hard,” Victor whispers, “without mercy, like I’m a toy, there for nothing but your pleasure.”

Jesus. Yuuri was already aroused, but now he’s thinking about Victor between his legs, and it’s too much.

Victor lets out a shaky laugh. “It’s never really turned out well when I told other people about it? I don’t know, I thought maybe it was just one of those things that is better in a fantasy than reality? Or maybe…” His voice drops. “Maybe I was just…bad at wanting?”

“That doesn’t sound right,” Yuuri mutters. “You’re really good at this.”

“So are you.”

“Me?” Yuuri’s hand falls on his chest, even though Victor can’t see the motion.

“You.”

His voice shifts, becoming something silky and smooth. “Yuuri, let me make it up to you. You still want me, don’t you?”

“Ohhh.” The word comes out a little moan. “So much.” His skin feels strange, tingly, like he needs to be touched.

“Let me do you this time,” Victor whispers. “Let me show you how good you make me feel.”

Oh, God. They’re doing this. They’re doing this again. Yuuri feels his cheeks flame.“Victor, I—”

“That’s not what you called me earlier,” Victor purrs. “Call me yours when I’m about to go down on you.”

Yuuri groans and gives in. “Victor— _my_ Victor.” It’s easier to say now that he’s said it before. Yuuri’s hand slides under the band of his boxer briefs, touching himself. “You’re so beautiful.”

“So are you. I want to get between your thighs. Spread them apart, kiss up them—”

“Skip my stupid thighs,” Yuuri mutters.

“Why? They’re so perfect.”

“Um.” Yuuri’s minds malfunctions. “Uh.” _His_ thighs?“They’re so _thick.”_

“They’re _so_ thick,” Victor repeats in a tone of satisfaction completely different from Yuuri’s. “I want to feel them squeezing my head when I lick your balls.”

“Oh.” Yuuri is too turned on to argue. He shuts his eyes and takes his cock in hand. His fingers aren’t enough, but it’s almost like Victor is there. “Yeah. Okay. That’s…good, so good, Victor. You’d be so beautiful there.”

Victor lets out another whimper. “I want to swallow your cock. Want to feel you in my mouth, so hard.”

“Yeah.” Yuuri’s brain is malfunctioning; his words are coming out on autopilot. “You’d take it so well, so perfectly, wouldn’t you?”

“As much as you’d give me.”

“I want to give you everything.” Yuuri pauses, only to strip naked and find the bottle of lube. The loss of friction, the warm slipperiness, makes it easier to shut his eyes and imagine it’s Victor. Victor’s mouth, not Yuuri’s hand; Victor’s lips, not Yuuri’s fingers.

Victor moans.

“Are you touching yourself, too?”

“Yeah. Is it okay, if—”

“So okay. I’m so close, Victor. So close. I’m going to come, just need another minute.”

“Oh, Yuuri,” Victor says, “you’re going to fill me up so good.”

Yuuri lets out a whine.

“You want it too, baby, you—”

“No,” Yuuri hears himself say, “no, that’s not the problem, I’m so sorry, it’s—um—Victor, good is an adjective, if you’re going to use it to modify a verb, it should be _well,_ the adverbial form, not _good.”_

There’s a long pause.

“I’m going to fill you up so _well,”_ Yuuri explains because apparently he does not want to have phone sex with Victor after all, “not fill you up _good.”_ He wants to hit his head against a nearby wall, because what the hell is he saying? His hand stills on his dick, which is still crying out for attention.

“I, um, it’s just, um. I blame Screaming Craig from Detroit? He never seemed to understand my English, so I thought there was something wrong with it? I might have memorized a grammar textbook, and now it just kind of grates on me when things are wrong?”

“Screaming Craig?” It’s the first thing Victor has said since Yuuri corrected his grammar. Oh, no. Yuuri corrected his _grammar._

“It turns out that my English was fine in the first place,” Yuuri mutters. “Screaming Craig was just a jerk. Why am I talking about Screaming Craig now? Can you, um, never mind, it’s fine, I’ll fill you up any way you want. Even grammatically incorrectly.”

“Yuuri, were you correcting my English?”

Yuuri winces. “Yes? But…um, the usage is colloquial, it’s fine, don’t listen to me!”

“God,” Victor says in satisfaction. “I think I’m the luckiest man ever. You’re going to make me feel so…” He stops. “Damn. Now I’m second-guessing myself. Is that supposed to be well, too?”

“Good is fine there, because it’s a predicate adjective.” There is nothing less sexy than predicate adjectives.

Victor just laughs. “What even _is_ English?”

“Right?”

“Okay, Yuuri. Fill me up and do it well. I want to hear you come again. Use me. Tell me how you want my mouth.”

“On me.” Yuuri’s chest feels tight. His dick is still hard, and he’s going to have one hell of a night if they don’t finish, but… “I’m sorry, I just… My mind. It just does weird things, and it doesn’t shut up.”

“It’s okay, Yuuri,” Victor says. “This way, I know it’s you, even if I can’t see you or touch you. And I want it to be you.”

It’s the hottest thing Victor has said all night. Yuuri wants it to be true. He wants it with a desperation that feels too big to fit inside him. Victor wants him, stupid thighs, stupid mouth, and all.

“Victor. You’re the best. The most beautiful. The—oh, shit, shit.”

Yuuri’s hand is on his own cock, desperately stroking, seeking, seeking.

“Fuck,” Victor says. “I’m so close, too. Yuuri, let me hear you.”

The thought of Victor getting himself off is what does it. Yuuri chokes. His orgasm is almost painful, traveling from his balls up through his cock, spurting out of him. “God,” Yuuri says. “God, Victor, my Victor. You’re so good. You’re so beautiful.”

He can hear Victor gasping. “Yuuri, you’re perfect. So perfect. You’re the most perfectest.”

“ _Victor.”_ Yuuri can hear himself whine. “You can’t…”

Victor laughs, and Yuuri realizes he did it on purpose.

“I can,” Victor says softly. “I can’t believe you can still think about grammar. I’m going to have to work you a lot harder to see when that cuts off.”

It shouldn’t be possible to feel this surge of arousal and affection so close on his orgasm. Victor is so over the top. Perfect is pretty much the last word Yuuri can imagine using to describe himself. “It’s nothing,” he mutters. “You did all the work anyway. I didn’t do anything.”

“That didn’t sound like nothing to me,” Victor teases. “That sounded like—”

“Fine.” Yuuri covers his blushing face. “I came my brains out and can barely think of words. Does that make you happy?”

“ _So_ happy.” Victor laughs. It’s a high, clear laugh, with something that’s almost a gurgle at the end. It’s so pretty that Yuuri could listen to him laugh for hours. Yuuri wants to be funnier.

“That’s not how you laugh in interviews.”

“It’s how I laugh for you, my Yuuri,” Victor says. He sounds almost shy.

“Only me?”

“Well, maybe a few other people,” Victor teases. “But you’re the only one who can reduce me to _this_.”

His phone dings, and a photo comes through. It’s Victor, his hair sweaty and plastered to his head, his chest a blushing rose. The phone is angled just so, and the lighting isn’t great. Everything below his abs blurring indistinctly into pink flesh. It’s still a fucking hot photo. He looks…used.

“You’re so beautiful.” The words come out of him without thought. “I have to admit, I would never have guessed that there was a lack of people willing to fuck you repeatedly. If that’s the primary qualification, there should be a line out the door.”

Victor sighs. “I. Well. When I was eighteen, Ivan, my first lover—”

Yuuri hears himself growl.

“Yuuri, are you _jealous?”_

“Not really,” he answers through gritted teeth. He’s not jealous. That would be entirely irrational. He would have been fourteen at the time, and…no. Just no. Still…

“Oh.” Victor sounds pleased. “That’s good. After, um, things started to get a little boring? I told him that I fantasized about being used.”

Yuuri’s jealousy fades, as he realizes that this is not going to be a story about Victor liking sex with Ivan. “Was he not into it?”

“He was very into it,” Victor says. “He wanted to use me. He…called me some ugly names and, um, told me I was supposed to just take it because that’s what it meant to be used, and… I didn’t like that. We argued. He told me it was my fault for not knowing what I wanted.”

Yuuri frowns at the phone. “Well. Ivan is terrible. I hate him.”

“I don’t want to blame him. He wasn’t a bad guy.”

 _Victor_ wouldn’t. Yuuri’s never seen him blame anyone for anything, not in any of the hundreds of interviews that he’s watched. On the few occasions that something has gone wrong, he’s never blamed his skates or the ice or his coach’s advice. “I didn’t have it today,” he had used to say. “I’ll do better the next time.”

It is one of the many, many things that Yuuri liked about him—that he may be (rightfully) arrogant about his abilities, but his arrogance means that on the rare occasions that he fails, he always blames himself.

His eyes narrow at the phone.

“He wasn’t wrong,” Victor is saying softly. “He just did what I told him.”

“Did he know you at all?” Yuuri scoffs. “Just because you want to _be_ used doesn’t mean you want to _feel_ used. Did he pay any attention to you at all?”

“Well—”

“No,” Yuuri answers, and since he’s spent half his life paying attention to Victor Nikiforov, he feels entirely confident. “He didn’t. There’s a difference between wanting to make someone else feel good, and wanting them to make you feel bad.”

“Oh,” Victor says. His voice is quiet. “That’s…that’s exactly it.”

“Nothing wrong with either one,” Yuuri says, “but…you’re really not into the last one, are you? I’ve watched you skate hundreds of times, and you clearly like making people feel good.”

It sounds like Ivan was a dick—non-dicks don’t tell someone that it’s _their_ fault the two of you aren’t sexually compatible—but Victor is probably too nice to agree.

“After that, I, um, never really brought it up with Mikhail,” Victor whispers. “He was a hockey player, and he moved to Moscow before we got serious. So we just did, um, this? On the phone? And…it was pretty obvious that he wasn’t into the things that I am. So… things wound down.”

“Is that what you’re doing with me?” It makes perfect sense. “Testing to see if we, um, work together?”

“No,” Victor says. “I, um. I already knew that you would listen to me.”

Yuuri almost asks how he knew, but then he remembers. It’s the treasure map that he gave Victor. He probably described what he liked in detail. Victor’s known all Yuuri’s sexual preferences for _weeks._

Oh. Drunk Yuuri has been telling tales on Sober Yuuri. No _wonder_ Victor’s wanted this. Victor learned to doubt himself earlier, and he’s learned to close himself off. Yuuri’s the first person he’s met who he’s sexually compatible with, and he wants to explore this, see what it’s like.

At some point, Victor’s going to discover that there are plenty of people who can give him what he needs—and they’ll do it far better than Yuuri. Yuuri, after all, has a smattering of college experiences, some good, some okay. He can talk a good game on the phone—that’s basically just fantasizing out loud about Victor Nikiforov, and hell, the vast majority of Yuuri’s sexual experience is fantasizing about Victor.

In person, he’s going to be a disappointment.

It was bad when he worried about opening his heart up to Victor, letting him leave his footprints all over the territory. Now it’s worse. He knows he’s going to be hurt, and hurt badly.

Except…

Except Victor is into Yuuri’s dorkiness. He laughed off the bit with grammar. He didn’t _expect_ Yuuri to be this much of a dork. He wanted Drunk Yuuri’s sexual confidence, and he got Sober Yuuri instead.

Victor has had Sober Yuuri for two weeks now, and he likes Sober Yuuri. He _trusts_ Sober Yuuri.

“Thank you for telling me, my Victor,” Yuuri says. “I won’t… I won’t hurt you like that.” He’ll be his own disappointment in his own unique ways, he’s sure, but he’ll never make Victor feel like he’s not right in his own skin. Never.

“You sound tired.” Victor laughs. “I need to clean up and get to ballet. I’ll just say I’m late because I was cross-training.”

“I’m messing up your schedule, aren’t I?”

“Yuuri, did you see the breakdown of my scores at Russian Nationals?”

“I know you got a season’s best.”

“Did you look at my PCS?” Victor’s voice drops. “Yakov told me whatever it was that had changed in my training, I needed to keep doing it. That’s you, Yuuri. You’re officially part of my schedule.”

Yuuri bites his lip, trying to hold back his grin, and then realizes he doesn’t need to hold it back. “I love cross-training with you.”

“Best cross-training,” Victor agrees. “Go to sleep.”

Yuuri manages to get himself out of bed for a quick wash, but he’s exhausted. Something niggles at the edge of his mind, something important. Something he’s almost on the verge of grasping.

He falls asleep before he can take hold of it.

#

He doesn’t get it until the next night, looking over footage of that day’s skate with Victor.

“Jesus, Yuuri.” Victor sounds shocked. “You _made_ that jump. I can’t believe you landed it. Can we see it again frame-by-frame? I’m serious, I want to use this as my quad loop reference video.”

Yuuri sighs. “I landed _one_ of my five attempted loops, and it surprises you? You’re getting forty percent of them now.”

“Yes, but, _Yuuri._ That entry. You realize you only have 2.7 seconds of acceleration leading up to the jump. You’re failing your quad loops that are at a GOE of zero, but you land the one that’s +3? That’s unnatural.”

“It’s just luck.”

“No, it’s not. It’s because you’re so blisteringly good at step sequences. You can bring a hell of an acceleration in a short space of time, and the less time you give yourself to think about a jump, the more likely you are to land it.”

Yuuri stares at his own screen, frowning.

“You did it at All Japan, too. The Salchow with the long, easy acceleration, you messed up. But then, that quad-sow-triple-toe combo came right out of the step sequence, and you just _did_ it.”

“That feels wrong. Somehow.” Yuuri frowns. He dimly remembers Celestino praising him for his combo, and the entry, and the GOE. He mostly had tried to tune out all the praise; it made his skin itch.

“You know, you really can beat me.”

“Agh. I mean—sure, I landed one jump, but I have so much to do, and you’re getting better, too—don’t just _say_ these things to complement me—”

“I’m serious,” Victor says. “I’m always serious about skating. If you skated your routine at your very best, I’d need five quads to beat you, and I don’t know if I have what it takes to land five clean quads.”

“That’s ridiculous.”

“Don’t get me wrong,” Victor says, “I don’t want to exaggerate. I’m going to beat you nine point five times out of ten, because you’re so inconsistent. But I’ve won 13 of my last 13 competitions. It’s about time for that point fifth of a time to catch up to me.”

“Competitions are a memoryless transaction,” Yuuri mutters.

“What?”

“Never mind.”

“I’m just saying, if your consistency improves, I’m going to have to get that fifth quad.”

It’s not believable that he, Yuuri Katsuki, is causing Victor to feel this way. “Does that bother you?”

There’s a pause, then a giggle. “Yuuri, I _love_ it. If you beat me, I’ll kiss your feet on the podium.”

#

Yuuri can’t get that out of his mind afterward—that phrase. _Yuuri, I love it._

Drunk Yuuri seduced Victor with his sexual confidence.

Sober Yuuri wants Victor—all of him—forever, with a selfishness that surprises him. Drunk Yuuri gave Victor a treasure map that makes his voice falter and his knees weak when he thinks about it? Well. Sober Yuuri wants to outdo him.

People have sometimes said that Yuuri “lacks competitive spirit” ( _Newsweek_ ) because he’s quiet and doesn’t talk himself up. The truth is that Yuuri has always been relentlessly focused on winning, and winning big. He never trash-talked Cao Bin because Cao Bin was never his target. His sights have always been set on Victor.

He hates losing. He hates coming in second. He hates it in skating, but he particularly hates it in the race for Victor’s heart. Even if the person he’s competing with happens to be his intoxicated alter ego.

Drunk Yuuri got under Victor’s skin?

Well, Sober Yuuri is going to give him that much more—with his skating, his dorkiness, his stupid sense of humor. Yuuri’s going to show Victor around the landscape of his heart. He’s going to give him a bigger, better treasure map than Drunk Yuuri ever could.

Victor wants Yuuri to come hither; Yuuri’s going to come hither so well that Victor won’t know what happened to him.

He makes a chart and titles it.

_I AM NOT OBLIVIOUS_

_AKA THINGS VICTOR LIKES ABOUT SOBER YUURI_

  * dorky sense of humor
  * seems to enjoy my stupid asides?!
  * mutual love of dogs
  * both skaters
  * similar trash-talk styles
  * hard-working
  * longitudinal studies? WTF Victor.



He adds a second column.

_THINGS VICTOR LIKES ABOUT DRUNK YUURI_

  * mutual love of dogs
  * sexual confidence



Drunk Yuuri’s list is shorter, but that last item is huge. It may be insurmountable, especially when all Yuuri has on his side is dorkiness and longitudinal studies.

 _No big deal,_ he thinks to himself with a bravado that is absolutely a lie. _Sexual confidence. Sure. I can get that. I just need to know how._

#

He doesn’t figure it out, not until the next day, when he’s on a Skype call with Celestino. His quad training calendar is in front of him.

“You’ve already improved so much,” Celestino tells him from the laptop perched on the boards. “I know we thought this was a long shot, but you have time, dedication, and a plan. You can do anything with those three things.”

That’s when it clicks.

Time. Dedication. Plan.

Sexual confidence can’t be harder than being the first person to ratify a quad loop, can it? Both are long shots, but…

Yuuri flips through his calendar and counts weeks off in his head. Four Continents is eight weeks from now; worlds is six weeks after that.

That means that Yuuri has fourteen weeks to get really good at sex.

“Yuuri?” Celestino asks. “Is everything okay?”

“Yeah.” Yuuri can feel a strain of panic bubbling up inside him—he’s not good yet, he’s not enough, what is he going to _do_ —but it’s too soon to panic. He has fourteen weeks.

All he has to do is skate better than he ever has before, then fuck Victor Nikiforov better than he’s ever fucked anyone before. All while finishing his final semester in college. No problem. Haaaaa.

“You just got really quiet.”

Yuuri shakes his head. “I was just thinking that I can’t wait to show Victor what I can do at worlds.”

“That’s the spirit,” Celestino praises.

Yuuri manages not to laugh hysterically.

#

_Yo. I have a physiology question for you, oh physiologist supreme._

_Phichit, this *better* not be like last time you asked me a physiology question._

_TOTALLY DIFFERENT. How much radiation can hamsters be safely exposed to?_

_Uh. You have a weird view of what I’m learning in my undergrad curriculum. I don’t know anything about hamster physiology. Or radiation. Literally nothing. I mean, I’m pretty sure hamsters have bones, but maybe not if you irradiate them? Also, how on earth did this question come up? What are you doing over there?! I leave, and the apartment falls into a nuclear waste zone? I know Detroit is bad but that’s some serious stuff._

_*whistles innocently* Nothing is happening, nothing at all. By the way, I assume we’re not talking about what Victor said about you because…?_

_Because I deleted Twitter and haven’t seen it._

_It wasn’t just on Twitter, it was all over._

_Luckily I am super-busy learning about non-radiative-hamster physiology. Haven’t seen anywhere at all. If I don’t see it, it doesn’t exist. La la la la la._

_Yuuri, are you telling me that Victor Nikiforov gave an interview about your ass and you *still* haven’t seen it?_

_NOT SEEING THIS EITHER OH LOOK MY FINGER IS SLIPPING I’M ACCIDENTALLY TURNING OFF MY PHONE._

#

Yuuri makes his plan that night, using his quad jump training plan as a basis. He gives himself weekly goals and regular evaluations.

All he has to do is find the confidence to blow Victor away before he sees him again. He’s never managed to find confidence before, but he _has_ to do it now. _Has_ to. Now that he knows there’s a chance he might be able to keep Victor, he can’t let the slightest opportunity go.

Yuuri manages to evade the bubbling, low-level anxiety that he feels every time he thinks about this the same way he always does: by putting all the angst off into the future. It’ll be fine, he tells himself. He doesn’t need to panic until he sees Victor again, and by then, he’ll have figured it out. He reduces Operation Find Sexual Confidence to bullet points and attaches dates to them.

**Week 1: Read the Joy of Gay Sex.**

He reads it, head-down on his phone, on the way to the rink, highlighting portions, making notes in an app about the things he thinks are hot.

It’s a ridiculously long list, and the thought of trying all those things with Victor makes him feel both nervous and turned on. He hides this emotion the way he always does—behind other emotions.

“Hey,” he says to Victor one night a few days later, “do you mind if I send you photos of my dog?”

“Why would I mind?”

“Because she looks…a lot like Makkachin.” Yuuri’s own stomach hurts just thinking about looking at the pictures.

Victor is quiet for a moment. “I like dogs who look like Makkachin.”

They don’t talk about the fact that Vicchan is dead, or that her name is Victor even though she’s a girl. Still, hearing Victor coo over her makes _something_ in Yuuri’s chest loosen.

By the end of the week, they have a shared photo album titled simply “Dogs.” They drop pictures of all the dogs they see in there, so they can squeal over them jointly when they have the time.

“This,” Victor says passionately, “this is how you make a long-distance relationship work.”

By the end of the week, Yuuri’s done with the book. His list is long, and the next step is even more daunting.

**Weeks 2-5: Try ideas on Victor during phone sex and identify which ones get him hot and bothered.**

This turns out to not work at all according to plan. The first time he tries to say something he wants to do outloud, he gets red and he chokes. Victor asks him what’s wrong, and Yuuri makes up a stupid excuse.

Back to the drawing board. He needs a better plan.

He writes out the sentences he wants to say, editing them ruthlessly. Then he practices saying them alone on his run to the rink, because it’s not like he has any other extra time.

“I want to eat your ass,” he pants softly in English, jogging along the river, and if his face turns red, well, anyone who sees him will think it’s the exercise.

Good thing he tried this in private first. He winces as he speaks, even though nobody can hear him. What a stupid sentence. It’s not forceful enough. Not sexy enough, not for Victor.

He thinks as he runs and tries again. “Your ass is better than chocolate.”

No, no, no. Definitely do not mention anything brown in a sentence about ass-eating.

He tries to go more poetic. “I want to partake of the flower of your…” Buttocks? Asshole? “…pale cheeks with my tongue.”

He mutters this at a street corner; the woman he didn’t realize was standing behind him gives him a sharp look.

“What did you say?” she asks in perfect English.

“Nothing! Nothing!” Yuuri wants to die. “Just— _nothing.”_

She menaces him with her umbrella anyway.

A week and a half later, he gives up on trying to get it exactly right. He writes his deeply imperfect sentence on notecards anyway, just to be safe. He blurts it out at night. “Victor, would you want me to eat your ass?”

“Yes,” Victor says instantly. “Oh, God. Yes. What are you going to do?”

Which is the point when Yuuri realizes that congratulations, he has won the right to now _describe_ himself eating Victor’s ass on the phone, and he doesn’t have _that_ on notecards.

It only gets worse from there. “Okay. Um.” He’s bright red. “I, um, I guess, I touch you with my thumb first? Just rubbing circles?”

He nearly groans in frustration. No, of _course_ they’re circles. He’s not going to rub _squares_ on a round asshole. What is he even _saying?_

“God, yes,” Victor says. “Touch me, don’t stop, don’t stop.”

“I, um. I lean forward? And set my lips to your ass.”

Victor gasps.

“You smell good,” Yuuri says, because smells are less embarrassing to narrate than body parts. “Like soap and lotion. You cleaned yourself up so well for me.”

“What do you smell like, Yuuri?”

“Me? Right now?” Yuuri winces. “Um, you know how I put off that stupid organic chemistry lab until the last possible instant? Well, I had to make aspirin today. So I smell like oil of wintergreen.”

“What’s that?”

“One of the intermediates in the synthesis. You shouldn’t actually have too much in the final yield but I was distracted and, um, I had super-low aspirin yield…” He stops himself, realizing that’s not at all what Victor was talking about. “I mean, mint. It smells like mint. What was I talking about?” Oh, god, he remembers with a mix of embarrassed lust. “Right. I set my tongue against your hole.”

He quickly discovers there are not enough synonyms for _tongue_ or _hole_ or _ass_ in the English language. He’s reusing those words and it feels awkward, so awkward.

Victor still comes.

Then he returns the favor, and when he does, he _devours_ and _nibbles_ and _licks into_ Yuuri, and oh, God, of course, how did Yuuri not realize. Verbs, verbs are good, you don’t always need to use the same old nouns as body parts.

The good news is that, as terrible as Yuuri is at phone rimming, Victor appears to be so into it that his incompetence goes unnoticed.

One item down. Ninety-three to go. It only took him a week and a half for the first one. Yuuri is woefully behind.

He discovers that Victor is enthusiastic about just about everything he tries, even if Yuuri shamefully and unimaginatively describes it with fingers, fingers, and more fingers.

Synonyms for _tongue_ and _cock_ do not magically appear just because he wants them. Verbs like _nibble_ and _devour_ are not magical sexual panaceas, either. They make him wonder when he’s using them if it’s phone sex or if he’s maybe roleplaying a zombie feeding on human flesh.

It seems unfair. When _Victor_ uses them he never thinks Victor sounds like a cannibal.

He falls behind schedule. So behind that he’s almost in a panic every time he checks the grid. Weeks six and seven come when he’s only gone through four of the ninety-some items on his list.

He bulls on and tells himself he’ll just have to double up.

**Weeks 6-9: experiment on myself so I know what feels good.**

He made a note originally: Probably won’t get it right, maybe seek help on anonymous internet forums?

The good news is that the not-so-low-grade anxiety he’s feeling about Operation Sexual Confidence has left him feeling _less_ anxious about his skating. He may suck at landing a quad loop, but at least he’s better at that than sex.

The bad news is that reading internet forums has not proven to be a great source of information.

Week eight is interrupted by a trip to Taipei for the Four Continents championship. Time is of the essence; he spends the taxi ride to the hotel furiously reading an argument about the best way to finger someone. It turns out that people do not agree, not at all. Scissoring results in anal tears, someone says. Do not do it. Scissoring is necessary for any kind of anal sex at all, someone else says. _Definitely_ do it.

According to the internet, Yuuri has been doing everything wrong in sex. He kisses wrong. He produces too much semen when he comes. His prostate is apparently not in the right place compared with other people.

Internet forums are the _worst._

Yuuri has learned the names for both sphincter muscles in English, Japanese, and Russian. He hasn’t figured out what to do with either of them.

 _Yuuri._ His phone lights up with a text from Victor in his cab, interrupting his frantic studying. _Yuuri, are you there yet? You were on a plane for so many hours, I missed you!_

He can’t help but smile. _I’m just coming up to the hotel. Give me a half hour to check in and we can talk._

 _I can be patient,_ Victor says. From experience, Yuuri is pretty sure he can’t.

Sure enough, ten minutes later, as Yuuri is in the elevator, key cards in hand, his phone rings.

“Yuuri,” Victor says, “I miss you so much! I’ve spent the last two days in a rage thinking about how Cao Bin will get to see you but I won’t!”

“Is that why you haven’t been checking in with me as much?”

“So unfair! I was letting you pack!”

“At least it’s Cao Bin you’re jealous of,” Yuuri says, teasingly. “It could be worse. It could be JJ.”

“Who?”

“Never mind.” Yuuri comes to a stop in front of his room. His keycard snicks in, and the light on the lock turns green. “I wish you were here, too.”

“If this were worlds,” Victor asks coyly, “what would you do?”

 _Panic,_ Yuuri thinks.

“Same thing I’m doing now.” Yuuri sets his suitcase on the bed. “I’d unpack very slowly and make sure I didn’t forget anything.”

“ _Yuuri.”_

“Fine. I’d take you out for katsudon.”

“ _Yuuri,_ so mean. I miss you so much.”

Yuuri lets his voice drop. “I _was_ being serious. You’re going to need some real calories to keep up with me.”

“I could carboload on the plane so we could start sooner.”

“On plane food?” Yuuri is dubious.

“Uh, first class plane food?”

“Oh, first class. That explains everything. I keep forgetting you’re the fancy skater.”

“I’m not fancy!”

“Sure.” Yuuri just smiles. Over the last eight weeks they’ve become…almost comfortable with each other. Yuuri’s stopped wincing every time he opens his mouth except during sex. Yuuri just shakes his head. “Yakov wouldn’t like you disappearing to be with me.”

“You’re teasing me,” Victor says. “Yakov wouldn’t mind. I told you, he thinks you’re an important part of my training regimen. Just give me your room number and let me see you.”

Yuuri _is_ teasing, but he isn’t. He bites his lip and thinks about the fact that it’s already week eight and the internet, which is at a minimum supposed to be good for porn, still hasn’t told him the absolute best way to finger Victor properly, let alone fuck him. He wants, oh, he wants. But he needs to do it right, and somehow even roleplaying it now feels premature. He hasn’t had a chance to make proper notecards.

If this were worlds, if Yuuri had to deliver on his promises to Victor… He still doesn’t have a numbered list of how to give a proper blowjob. And his sexual confidence is somehow even _worse_ than when he started this plan.

He feels the panic he’s been suppressing with lists and rules rise up in a bubble in his lungs.

 _It’s going to be okay,_ he tells himself. He has six more weeks. He’s off-schedule, but he’ll make it up, somehow, even though he has another battery of tests due when he returns from this competition and three lab write-ups that he’s supposed to finish on the plane ride home. And yes, the important stuff is all backloaded on his confidence schedule, but he has time. He has time. Six weeks from now, he’s going to be more confident even then Drunk Yuuri.

“Fine,” Yuuri says, with a swagger he doesn’t feel. “If this were worlds, I’d tell you to get your ass to my room right this second. It’s number 1612.”

“Just my ass?” Victor teases. “At least _pretend_ to like me for my personality.”

“I don’t know.” Yuuri acts like he’s hesitating. “I’ve been traveling all day, and you haven’t sent me any dogs. How am I supposed to meet my dog quota when you’re neglecting our folder like that?”

Victor gasps. “I’ve been wrongfully accused.”

“Did I not keep you fully stocked with dogs during the European Championships, Nikiforov? You have to hold up your end of the bargain.” There. A little teasing has managed to push his anxiety back. He’s okay. “Now, you were saying—you’re coming up to my room?”

There’s a light rap on his door.

Yuuri swallows.

“Don’t you think you should get that, my Yuuri?” Victor says innocently. “It might be the hotel staff with something you forgot at check in.”

Suspicion falls over Yuuri like a cold net. How did Victor hear that knock through the phone?

Was Victor _really_ letting him pack these last two days, or…?

“No,” Yuuri hears himself say. He sounds like he’s going through a tunnel. “I’m talking to you right now, I don’t want anyone else to interrupt.”

The knock sounds louder.

“Maybe you really should get that,” Victor says, and oh, voices can’t smirk, but Victor’s does. It definitely does.

Yuuri finds himself drifting to the entry. It can’t be, he thinks. It wouldn’t be. Victor has his own training to do. Worlds is soon, and Yakov wouldn’t let him go halfway across the globe…

Yuuri opens the door.

Victor is standing on the threshold of his hotel room. He’s wearing a blue wool hat that covers his hair, a leather jacket, jeans, and a thin white shirt. He takes off sunglasses that seem entirely unnecessary in winter, and his smile blazes out. “Hi, Yuuri! Surprise!”

The panic Yuuri’s been trying to suppress reaches up and grabs him by the throat. Victor can’t be here. It’s not time. Yuuri has six more weeks on the schedule until he’s ready for this to happen, and even that isn’t enough.

Victor takes a step forward.

Yuuri screams and slams the hotel door. His legs stop supporting him; his vision has gone blurry. He can’t breathe.

He’s vaguely aware that Victor is saying things through the door— _Yuuri, Yuuri, are you okay? Yuuri, is something wrong? Yuuri?_

He can’t listen, and now he’s made it all impossible. He’s managed to hide the worst of himself from Victor all these weeks, but now it’s too late. How is he going to explain _this?_

_Sorry, Victor, I saw a centipede on the wall behind you._

No, he can’t lie to Victor.

_Sorry, Victor, I actually have pretty severe anxiety and I’m not as good at sex as you seem to think._

He can’t exactly tell him the truth, either.

His phone pings with one text, then another. It rings, then rings again. Another text. He can’t see what Victor is saying—his vision won’t focus—and yet he can already see him in his mind. Those little notification pings add up with every passing second—a dozen admonitions, a hundred demands, a thousand regrets.

One of those texts is almost certainly Victor breaking up with him. As he should. Yuuri is the worst. The absolute worst.

Yuuri reaches out and shuts his phone off. He can’t speak. He can’t type. He can’t say anything to Victor, and so Yuuri does nothing—he sits on the floor near his door, curled in a ball, just trying to breathe.

Yuuri’s been fooling himself all these weeks, thinking that he can bind Victor to him. He never had a chance, not one. This was always going to end like this—in tears, and panic, and Yuuri’s vision swimming in little spots.

There’s nothing to do now but wait for Victor to go away forever.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter: reveals on all the important things hinted at in this chapter, like non-radiative-hamster physiology and what Victor said in his interview about Yuuri’s ass. Also Yuuri skates in Four Continents! Possibly there’s more phone sex? Who knows?
> 
> I had hoped not to have more than a week lapse between chapters 4 and 5, for reasons that are very obvious now, but things are still not quiet again. Expect chapter 5 on October 10th.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Yuuri skates in Four Continents, and we find out what happens with Victor.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In many ways, a piece of fiction is like the winding out of a promise: the promise is made, it’s tested, and then—hopefully—it delivers.
> 
> Thank you all so much for sticking with me and this fic so far. I am very much in your debt.
> 
> And what did I promise you?
> 
> Ah, yes. Non-radiative hamster physiology. The reveal about the interview about Yuuri’s ass. And some more phone sex. That wouldn’t fill 22,000 words, though, so I added in a few more things…

It’s eight at night. Five hours have passed since Yuuri broke down. He’s cried. He’s come to terms with the fact that he’s messed everything up. He’s avoided reality, remembered that he was supposed to meet Celestino on the ice for a last-minute afternoon practice two hours too late, and smoldered in shame.

But his shame is all-consuming for too short a space of time. When his breathing finally steadies, he discovers that his mouth is dry and he’s starving. Even Yuuri can’t make a meal of guilt for this long, and anxiety always makes Yuuri hungry.

Besides, not eating just before Four Continents is probably yet another terrible choice, and he’s embarrassed himself enough at international competitions this season.

He stands up, changes his shirt, washes his face, and considers his options.

Victor is sure to have left by now. Possibly, he’s gone to hang out with Cao Bin. Maybe he’s gone back to Russia.

Maybe he’s posted every dick pic that Yuuri ever sent him online and exposed him as the horrible cock tease that Yuuri knows he is.

And Yuuri needs to eat. Luckily, if ever there was a place to drown Yuuri’s regrets in rice and a reasonable amount of grease, it’s Taipei.

Yuuri carefully opens the door to his room and peers into the hallway.

Victor stands up from the floor, unfolding long legs. He looks exhausted and scared. Shit. He must have stayed here just to tell Yuuri exactly what an irredeemable jerk he is.

Yuuri can’t open his mouth, not even to stammer out an apology. He wrings his hands, searching for words.

Then Victor smiles with the wattage of a thousand suns. “Hi, Yuuri!” he says as if nothing is wrong at all. “I guess I should have listened to you after all. Want to get katsudon?”

#

Nowhere in Taipei serves katsudon that Yuuri is willing to trust, but when he describes what he’s looking for (local, rice, salty), Victor rescues his phone from where he’s plugged it into the hotel wall and finds a nearby restaurant that’s supposed to be good.

Victor keeps up the conversation on both sides, chattering about his flight, Yakov, a funny story Mila told him about mice, the pictures that the dogsitter sent him of Makkachin.

“They’re in our shared folder,” he tells Yuuri brightly, as if he didn’t just spend half his day in a hotel hallway.

They step into the hotel elevator and Victor puts on his hat—a blue wool hat that comes down over his ears, which he stuffs his fringe into as well—and adds sunglasses, even though it’s already dark out.

“Look,” he says, “it’s my definitely-not-Victor disguise! Nobody can tell who I am when I’m wearing it. No distinctive silver hair, no distinctive blue eyes! Does it work? Do you know who I am?”

Yuuri turns to look at him. Victor looks like…Victor, except wearing a dorky hat and sunglasses. Which is to say, he’s sexy and beautiful and cheerful and impossible.

Yuuri doesn’t know why he’s here. Yuuri doesn’t know how he’s still smiling. They cross the lobby, Victor walking confidently with the distinctive gait of Victor Nikiforov, and Yuuri shakes his head.

“Victor,” he says, as Victor politely opens the door for him, “I would recognize you from your elbow.”

“Right or left?”

“Either.”

Victor hums. “That’s impressive. I don’t know that I can say the same about you. I’ve never had to pick your elbow out of a line-up. Probably because your elbow is not a criminal!”

“And your elbow is?”

Victor lowers his sunglasses just enough to wink at Yuuri. “They haven’t convicted either of my elbows yet, so my wrong-doing doesn’t count.”

He’s nice, so nice that it hurts. Yuuri didn’t do anything to deserve being treated like this.

He lets Yuuri order when they arrive at the restaurant. “It says that some things on the menu are spicy online. Do you like things spicy? I do, but not _that_ spicy.”

“Not right before a competition.” Yuuri frowns at the menu. Victor has somehow found enough of a hole in the wall that there are no foreign translations; just a cardboard sheet on the wall labeled with characters and prices. His desire to eat grease is somewhat lessened by Victor being here.

“Wow, you can read that?” Victor asks.

“Kind of?” Yuuri grimaces.

“I didn’t know you spoke Chinese, too!”

“I don’t, not any of the dialects, but, um… Long story short, Taiwan and China and Japan don’t always use the same characters, but they were the same once, and they’re not that different now? The meaning is similar, so I can guess.”

“Wow, so you can _read_ Chinese!”

“Mmm. I don’t know how anything is pronounced, and the combination of characters usually means different things. But it’s like if I go into a Mexican restaurant and see something called ‘puerco’ on the menu, I’m going to guess that it’s pork because the words sound similar in English. Sometimes I guess right and it’s pork. Sometimes it’s wedding cake.”

“I should learn Japanese,” Victor says. “That’s so useful! I mean, I knew the symbols looked similar but I didn’t want to say that because isn’t it kind of racist to say that all Asian languages look the same?”

Yuuri just looks at him. “They don’t _all_ look the same. Thai, for instance, and modern Korean, and Indonesian—”

“Sure, sure. Still that would open up like…a billion some odd people more that I could communicate with.”

Yuuri sighs. “Knowing languages doesn’t help you communicate. I memorized an English grammar textbook, and I still can’t communicate. Demonstrably.”

Victor looks over at him, and Yuuri takes the opportunity to order. He calls out the items by number.

“I thought you said you didn’t speak Chinese!”

Yuuri thinks about telling him that Chinese isn’t really a language, and then figures he’s been enough of a jerk for the day. “I don’t really speak Mandarin, but I can manage ordering and please and thank you and good-bye. Besides, one of the Japanese numbering systems is kind of Chinese in origin anyway, so it’s super-easy to learn. Numbers don’t really count.”

“What do you mean, one of?”

While they’re waiting for their food to arrive, he stumbles through trying to explain counting in Japanese—“wait, so you’d count chopsticks differently from plates? Yuuri, that’s so cool! What about jumps, how do you count jumps in figure skating?”—until the food arrives.

It turns out that he managed to order braised pork with rice, pan-fried milkfish, and green beans drowning in what looks like a black bean sauce. They bring out big pots of tea, and Yuuri realizes that he’s incredibly dehydrated.

Food helps. Sitting with Victor, not acknowledging what happened, is awkward and terrible, but it turns out that once he’s not starving, it’s only awkward and terrible, and Yuuri has more experience with awkward and terrible than just about everyone he knows. Enough to know that the world is not actually going to end in a flaming pyre of embarrassment.

Victor doesn’t ask. He doesn’t try to touch Yuuri. He just smiles and tries the green beans.

“These are really good,” he says. “Spicy, but not like Szechuan spicy. You should have more!”

Yuuri makes a face. “Not before a competition. My stomach acts up.”

“No?” Victor opens his mouth, then shuts it. “Well, okay. That’s fine. More for me!”

It’s only after Yuuri’s devoured some confection that involves red bean paste and fried things that he feels able to say something. He stares at the platters in front of them, pretty well picked clean.

“Um,” he says, “I…kind of haven’t mentioned this at any point in the last ten weeks since we, um, started doing this…? But I have pretty intense anxiety.”

Victor doesn’t immediately look disgusted or put off. He just watches Yuuri with an interested expression on his face.

“I, um, don’t really handle pressure well?”

Victor does not bother to try to look surprised.

“Some days, I don’t handle pressure at all. Pressure handles me.”

It helps to rub his chopsticks together, even though the meal is over. He doesn’t have to try and decipher the look on Victor’s face if he can’t see it. “After I melted down at Nebelhorn my first year with Celestino, he made me go talk to someone in America. It helped. Sort of. Sometimes.”

“So it’s Four Continents?” Victor asks. “I know you were kind of stressed about All Japan, too.”

Yuuri glances up. It’s late enough that the restaurant is deserted—nobody but them and the staff. Ostensibly, the waiters don’t speak English.

From personal experience with people assuming he doesn’t speak English, Yuuri prefers not to jump to any conclusions.

Besides, this is Victor Nikiforov, and Yuuri would be afraid to admit the truth to anyone he respected, let alone Victor. “Not that,” he mutters.

Victor exhales slowly and looks away. “So it was me, then? I’m the pressure.”

“Kind of?” Yuuri exhales; his chopsticks snap. “I mean, yes. Can we go somewhere else to talk?”

They still don’t hold hands on the walk back to the hotel. Victor doesn’t say anything. The food sits like a leaden lump in Yuuri’s stomach. His eating habits aren’t to blame; it’s just that his stomach is tied in knots. He’s going to have to talk. This was a mistake.

The day has been nothing but mistakes.

Just before they come up to the hotel doors, Victor stops and looks at Yuuri. “Did you want to… We could go to a cafe? Or I have a hotel room, too. I wanted to, um.”

“Have somewhere to stay in case I turned out to be terrible?” Yuuri asks.

Victor shakes his head. “No, actually. I wanted to shower and…um, well. You know. That kind of stuff before you got here.”

 _Oh._ Yuuri’s face burns. Victor, adorable Victor, lovable Victor, necessary Victor, getting his hopes and his dick up just to have Yuuri ruin everything. The weight he’s carrying around in his stomach feels even heavier.

Victor just tilts his head. “Which would you prefer?”

They go back to Yuuri’s room. Yuuri doesn’t turn on the lights, but the curtains are open and Taipei is bright at night. Victor sits on the little couch; instead of joining him, Yuuri curls up on the far end of the bed.

It’s easier if he doesn’t have to see Victor’s disappointment up close. It’s easier if there’s no possibility of them touching.

There’s no getting around the truth. He might as well tell Victor everything.

“I’m sorry I’m such a mess,” Yuuri says. “I, um, should have maybe not slammed the door on you? Or opened it sometime earlier than, like, after half the day had passed? But I was kind of a sobbing mess.”

“Probably just as well I wasn’t around for that, then,” Victor says easily. “I’m still terrible at people crying around me. I panic and just blurt whatever random thing pops into my head? It’s usually really stupid.”

Yuuri presses his lips together. Victor _still_ doesn’t sound pissed off, and he can’t figure out why he isn’t.

“One time,” Victor continues, “Mila’s grandfather died, and do you know what I said? ‘Well, at least you don’t have to worry about what to get him for his birthday anymore.’”

Yuuri tilts his head to look at Victor.

Victor shrugs. “Maybe don’t read your texts? I, um, kind of panicked and said a bunch of dumb stuff.”

Yuuri can’t help himself. “Did you google?”

“I did!” Victor grins. “I googled ‘What to do if you fly halfway around the world to see your boyfriend and he slams the door in your face.’”

“Oh no.”

“You’d think that would be too specific, but there was this thread on /r/reddit/relationships where this one woman did exactly that. She’d come to surprise her fiancé the weekend before the wedding, but it turned out he was having an affair. The whole thing got documented down to the minute. People got really into helping her out, and they had the best ideas for legal-but-vicious revenge. There were thousands of posts. It was glorious. It was like a mini TV drama, but without TV.”

“Did it have any good advice?”

“None at all!” Victor says cheerfully.

“You didn’t post on…that reddit thing, did you?”

“What, under the account that I did an AMA with?” Victor wrinkles his nose. “Of course not. I wouldn’t talk about anything private between us no matter what, and we haven’t discussed what we’d tell the public, either. I’ve already given one interview about you. Until we have that conversation, that’ll be enough.”

“You did?” Yuuri squeezes his eyes shut, and is suddenly glad he’s been avoiding social media. “Oh dear.”

“It was after the Twitter thing we’re also not talking about.”

“ _Oh.”_ Yuuri shakes his head. “The interview about my ass. Phichit told me that happened. I didn’t want to look. How embarrassing was that?”

“They asked for my comment on your tweet. I made them read it to me just so they would have to say the word ‘butt’ on television.”

Yuuri can’t help but smile faintly in appreciation.

“Then I said that you likely couldn’t see your own ass on a regular basis, and so you wouldn’t have the facts necessary to make an informed decision.”

“Oh my god, you didn’t.”

“I pointed out that I couldn’t really see my own, either, so the question of whose ass is better should probably be left to our fans, who can see them both.”

Yuuri smiles despite himself. “Victor, we watch hours of footage of our jumps. We see our asses all the time.”

“These are interviews, not facts. You’re not supposed to tell the truth, just build up your own image.”

“Oh. Is that…” He swallows. “Is that what I’m supposed to be doing with you right now? Building up my image?”

Victor turns to give Yuuri a look. “Sure, if your image wants to date me. I’d prefer you over your image, personally.”

“I, um. Me.” Yuuri has to scoot a little closer to say what comes next. Coming closer means that he can see Victor better, all the way over on the coach, a few meters distant, yet feeling no closer than when he was in Russia. “I had a schedule.”

“A schedule?” Victor frowns. “I know. I saw your schedule.”

“Not that one.” Yuuri swallows. “For when we, um, when we finally had sex in person? I wanted it to be really good for you, but…” He gestures with one hand, hoping that this conveys _but my game is actually shit,_ and continues. “So I, um, was doing research and making sure…” He trails off, wincing. “I wasn’t ready for you. It’s like one of those dreams when you wake up in the off season and you think you forgot that actually, you had a competition and you were supposed to have your new free program ready, but it’s not?”

“I hate those dreams.”

“Yeah, so. That’s what it felt like when I saw you here. I panicked pretty hard.”

Victor swallows. He taps his lips as if thinking it through. “But…why? I thought we were already good together.”

“I’m all talk.” Yuuri feels tears prick at his eyes. “I’m just, I’m not as good as you, you know? So I wanted to make it perfect for you. I just thought if I worked hard enough, I could do the one thing you wanted from me really well.”

There’s a long pause.

“Yuuri. You think I only want you for sex?”

Yuuri shakes his head, because no, he’s known that Victor isn’t a jerk like that, he’s known it for a long time, but that doesn’t make it _better,_ it makes it _worse_. “I mean, I know we’re friends, and… I’m pretty sure it’s not just that? But isn’t that what the treasure map was about in the first place? So you could get in my pants? It’s what started all of this. If I can’t get _that_ right, then what’s the point?”

“Yuuri. Sweetheart.” Victor’s voice is shaking. “That’s—it’s not—no. No, that wasn’t what the treasure map was about. It’s not what any of this has been about.”

“No?” He can’t cry any more tonight; he’ll get dehydrated, and Four Continents starts tomorrow, and oh god, he skipped evening practice and his phone has been off…

“No,” Victor tells him firmly, interrupting this particular downward spiral. “Yuuri. Listen to me. You’re the first person to really want me for who I am. I am so, so sorry that I never made you feel the same way.”

“Oh,” Yuuri says.

“We don’t have to have sex.”

Since nothing about the way Yuuri feels makes sense, the thing that comes out of his mouth is this: “But I really _want_ to have sex with you.”

“You shouldn’t feel like you have to perform, then,” Victor says. “You don’t have to be perfect. We can figure things out together, okay?”

“Can we?” Yuuri’s voice shakes.

“Of course we can. I love the idea of figuring things out with you. I—”

“No.” Yuuri turns to look at Victor on the sofa. “I mean, can we figure things out right _now?”_

Victor’s eyebrows rise. “You want to have sex at this exact moment? I mean, I’m not complaining, but…”

“Um. Well. I mean. That is… I can see how it’s kind of abrupt.” There’s a part of Yuuri that is always ready to have sex with Victor, but even Yuuri isn’t thirsty enough to go from confused to fucking in a matter of seconds. But… “That would be kind of a lot? But, um, could we have phone sex?”

Victor blinks. “You want to have phone sex right now.” He must see that Yuuri is serious, so he nods. “Should I go back to my room?”

“No. Stay here. But…um…yeah?”

Victor takes out his phone. “Sure.”

Yuuri turns on his phone.

“Oh, um, did I mention? Don’t read my texts, Yuuri.” Victor gives him a wary half-smile. “They’re, um. You don’t need to read them, okay?”

There are…oh, wow, two hundred and twenty-nine texts from Victor. Twelve from Phichit. Nine from Celestino. One from Minako, who yikes, had definitely told him that she was coming in tomorrow. Mari and his mom, too, probably wishing him good luck.

Crap. He shakes his head. Phichit and Celestino are probably in bed at this point, and Yuuri’s happy to ignore the world except Victor until tomorrow.

His phone rings.

How surprising. Somehow, it’s easy to answer. “Hello?” he asks, looking into Victor’s eyes across the room. “Who is this?”

Victor rolls his eyes. “Hi, Yuuri. It’s me.”

Somehow, even though he can hear Victor in this room, even though he’s looking him in the eyes, filtering this through the phone makes it safe.

“Hi,Victor. I had kind of a rough day today.”

“Can I help? What do you want me to do?” Victor’s voice on the phone is an echo of the sound in his ear.

“I’m feeling kind of sad and tired,” Yuuri admits, “and I want you to hold me.”

“Like, um, virtually hold you? Or…”

Yuuri nods. “Virtual for now.”

“Okay,” Victor says. “Then I’m going to lie next to you on the bed and put my arm around you. Is that okay?”

They’re separated by the bed. Their eyes are on each other. Victor is not lying next to him, and his arm is at his side. But Yuuri can still feel him, a warm, phantom pressure against his side.

“Yeah.” Yuuri exhales. “I’m going to curl up against you. Can I rest my head on your shoulder?”

“I’m here, Yuuri,” Victor says. “I’m going to hold you tight and not let go, okay?”

They don’t say anything for a few minutes. They don’t have to say anything, and sometimes it’s hard to imagine a good hug if you keep ruining it with words.

“I fucked up a lot today,” Yuuri admits.

“Sometimes that happens.” Victor shrugs. “At least you got it out of the way early this competition. That way it’ll be out of your system before the short program!”

Yuuri wrinkles his nose.

“Oh, that was…not the best thing to say.” Victor exhales. “Um. Pretend I didn’t?”

“I like the way you smell,” Yuuri finally offers.

“You’re so nice and warm,” Victor says. “You fit so well against me.”

Yuuri’s side is cold, and Victor is so far away. He shuts his eyes and exhales. “Did you break up with me?”

“What?”

“Um—sorry. I know I’m ruining the mood. I just—you did say you didn’t want me to read those messages, and… I was just wondering. It’s okay if you did.” His heart hurts. It’s not okay.

“I frantically sent you wave after wave of dog pictures,” Victor said. “And then puppy pictures, and pictures of multiple puppies and finally pictures that were just like wall-to-wall puppy. I was panicking. I mean, rejecting me makes sense, but who can reject wall-to-wall puppies?”

Yuuri laughs.

“You’re so beautiful, Yuuri.” Victor is looking at him like he means it.

“Me?”

“You’re smart,” Victor says, “and you’re funny, and did you know, I thought I knew every instrument that could show in a modern symphony, including that light thing you play with your hands? And then I saw you skate. Your body is the most beautiful instrument I’ve ever experienced.”

This is better than any fantasy Yuuri has ever had of Victor. He would never have dared to imagine Victor saying any of this.

“Talking to you is the best part of my day,” Victor says. “I was honestly considering quitting after the Grand Prix Final, and you came into my life. I miss you so much when we’re thousands of kilometers apart.”

Yuuri’s own feelings are a powerful undertow, tying him to Victor. Up until now, every truth he has given Victor has felt like an incursion in his heart. But somehow, he doesn’t feel tied down or hemmed in right now. Just tired.

He sighs and looks up, wishing he’d done anything different today. _Everything_ different. “And when we’re not thousands of kilometers apart, you _still_ miss me.”

“Sitting outside your hotel room for a handful of hours is pretty tame, judged on the scale of mythical labors performed to win the heart and hand of legendary beauties.”

Yuuri’s rendered temporarily speechless. He looks over, but Victor isn’t winking at him or wiggling an eyebrow. He looks serious.

Yuuri shakes his head ferociously. “That’s just…not a reasonable scale. You can’t say things like that.”

Victor meets his eyes. “I’ve spent six years letting everyone see me as a living legend instead of a breathing human. If that doesn’t earn me the right to tell you, in a moment like this, that you are the sun in my life, then nothing I’ve done has any meaning.”

The prickle of unshed tears stings Yuuri’s eyes. He’s not sure why this makes him want to cry.

“Let me take care of you,” Victor says. “That was the entire point of coming here, anyway. I wanted to hold your ice.”

He’s still Victor, even if he’s here. Even if he’s saying these ridiculous things. _Especially_ because he’s saying these ridiculous things. Yuuri swallows the lump of emotion in his throat and looks Victor in the eyes. “Just my ice? You came all the way to Taiwan just to hold my ice?”

A quirk of a smile plays out on Victor’s face. “Well. I wouldn’t object to holding _other_ things. But sure. I’ll hold your ice”

“You’re _that_ certain I’m going to fall.”

“Hey, I ice even if I don’t fall.”

Yuuri pretends to think about this for a moment. “You would need to. You _are_ a lot older than me.”

“Hey!” Despite Victor’s protest, his smile blazes. “I’m trying to have phone sex with you over here. Quit calling me old.”

“Hmmm.” Yuuri meets his eyes across the bed, and somehow, this should be awkward, but…it’s Victor. “Take off your shirt, and I’ll tell you if you look old.”

Victor exhales, swallowing, and then pulls his shirt off in one smooth movement, revealing perfect skin, rippling muscles… He folds his shirt carefully and sets it on the arm of the sofa. “What do you think? Young enough for you?”

Yuuri’s heart is beating dangerously. His mouth is dry.

“Results ambiguous,” Yuuri manages to get out. “I need to see more skin.”

Victor undoes a button on his jeans, and then slowly—very slowly—stands and shimmies out of them. Yuuri’s seen it before—on his phone, on his computer, in photos and in videos. In person, a few meters away, it’s not so strange. Just because those thighs, long and lean and powerful enough to land a quad flip, are close doesn’t make this different. His pulse leaps in wild anticipation anyway.

Victor folds his pants and stands at an angle, almost posturing, naked but for a pair of dark boxer briefs. “What do you think now?”

Yuuri licks his lips. He’s half-hard and completely gone. “Still…not quite enough information.”

Victor bites his lip and slides his underwear down his thighs.

 _It’s not different,_ Yuuri tells himself. _It’s not different, it’s not…_

It’s so different. Victor’s erection juts out, and even in the low light, with the sparkle of Taipei behind him, the fine detail is overwhelming. The red of his cockhead, the veins in the shaft, the smudge of thick, silver hair at the base. The air between them heats.

Victor’s here and he’s hard. He lets go of his underwear and it falls to the flow with a sigh.

“Oh.” Yuuri’s whine is involuntary. “Victor.”

“I know why you can’t tell,” Victor says with a smile. “You need a better point of comparison, and how can you have one when you’re wearing all those clothes?”

Yuuri looks down at himself.

“Strip for me, Yuuri.”

It’s easy. He’s done this before. Victor has seen him naked before. (But camera angles are different, his brain whispers, and he can’t see the stretch marks on his thighs when it’s Skype, and…)

He pulls off his shirt before he loses his nerve. Victor doesn’t seem to hate the way he looks in person, not if the happy noise he gives is any indication. It’s harder to take off his pants, but he does, sliding out of them.

“I didn’t wear sexy underwear,” he apologizes in a low voice. “I wasn’t really expecting…”

“It’s sexy. It’s the sexiest.”

“But it’s sexier off, right?”

Victor smirks. He’s all the way hard, and Yuuri’s not quite there yet. _Yet_ being the operative word. But watching Victor run a finger down his dick, all the way to the base, before taking himself in hand makes him think it won’t take long.

Yuuri shuts his eyes and pulls off his underwear.

“Oh, Yuuri.” Victor lets this out on a sigh. “I’ve wanted you so much, for so long.”

“It can’t be as long as I’ve wanted you.”

“Maybe, but compressing all that want into a shorter space just makes it more intense.” Victor looks at him. “I’m still not used to wanting anyone this much.”

“I’m not really that—”

“Hush.” Victor fixes him with a look. “You’re my mythical beauty. Someday people will talk about the legendary labors of Nikiforov. He sat outside Yuuri’s hotel room for five hours, you know. I’ve _earned_ this phone sex.”

That makes Yuuri’s chest feel funny again, warm and tingly.

“All yours,” he says shyly, and he’s not sure if he means sex or himself.

Victor strokes down his length, and Yuuri stops caring. He fumbles for the lube, hidden in the shoulder bag by the bed, and once he’s squeezed a generous amount onto his palm, tosses the container to Victor.

“Yes,” he hisses, watching as Victor slicks up his shaft, his eyes shutting. “That. Do that.”

“You’re so good, my sweet,” Victor says.

It’s not true, and Yuuri _still_ can’t do the whole petname thing. It still makes him feel stupid.

“Keep doing that,” he says instead. “Keep doing that, my Victor. Let me see you. Make yourself feel good for me.”

Victor pushes up into his fist. “Do you like it? Do you like knowing that I adore you? That I need you? That I can’t get you out of my mind?”

“I love it.”

Victor’s pace increases, and Yuuri matches him.

“Yuuri.”

“Victor.”

“Yuuri, God—I know, I can’t help it—I’m going to—”

In person, it’s just the same as over the phone. Victor’s cries cut off with a strangled choke. His muscles tense all over, standing out in sharp relief under his skin. His hand squeezes his dick, and he comes, heavily, perfectly.

Yuuri can smell it—a faint astringent smell—and somehow, this proof that it _is_ different is what he needs. His own hand dances along the edge of his cock, because phone sex has never been like this, never been this good, and he comes, too.

The room is warm.

Victor is sitting on the couch still. Lying, more like. He’s a glorious mess, and he’s smiling at Yuuri as if he is perfectly happy that he interrupted his training schedule to fly twenty hours around the world, just to have Yuuri freak out on him, ignore him, and then attempt to make up for it by offering phone sex.

It occurs to Yuuri that he looks this way because he _is_ perfectly happy to have had phone sex.

This is not like phone sex in one other way: They’re several meters apart, and they still haven’t touched.

“Don’t.” Yuuri stands up. “Don’t move.”

Victor’s eyes follow Yuuri as he goes to the bathroom, but the rest of him stays put. Yuuri wipes himself down swiftly, then comes back with a warm, wet washcloth. He kneels in front of Victor. “Is it okay if I touch you now?”

Victor gives him a besotted smile. “It’s _so_ okay.”

Yuuri gently runs the washcloth down his abs, across his fingers. Victor doesn’t say a word as Yuuri cleans his softening cock, his balls.

It occurs to him halfway through the process that this is the first time he’s ever really touched Victor. Oh, back in Sochi they’d brushed against each other a bit—hand holding, hugs. Nothing intimate like this, nothing like Yuuri kneeling in front of Victor and slowly, slowly cleaning him off.

Yuuri stands.

Victor just watches him.

It’s a strange, doubled moment. They’ve been fucking regularly for the last eight weeks running.

They’ve never kissed—not even on the phone, Yuuri realizes. They are so close and yet so far.

“I know you have a hotel room.” Yuuri bites his lip. “But, um… do you want to come to bed with me?” Slowly, he reaches out his hand.

“Always.” Victor sets his palm in his.

Victor puts his underwear back on; Yuuri finds a pair of loose pajama pants.

The transition between touching and not-touching is just that easy. It feels natural for Victor to wrap himself around Yuuri, all warm limbs and tight hugs. It feels natural to be pulled into Victor’s octopus embrace, to slide his arms around Victor’s waist and hold him back as tightly as Victor is holding him. It seems natural for their legs to entangle and their hands to fall on each other's hips.

Yuuri looks in Victor’s eyes.

It’s natural to tilt his head up. For Victor to exhale softly, leaning forward. It’s so right to kiss him that this doesn’t even feel like a first. The soft melding of their lips is Victor and Yuuri, and it’s powerful enough to be a mythic legend. But legends are about adventures and adversity, and this kiss is softness and warmth and the feeling, deep down in Yuuri’s heart, that he’s finally arrived home.

Victor cups Yuuri’s head in his hands. “The banquet at the European Championship was so boring without you. I got to thinking about how you barely remembered the banquet at the Grand Prix Final, and I just…had this moment of total horror, because what if you hadn’t come to my room? What if you’d been sober enough to get back to your own? What if you’d just _left_ and we didn’t talk? Would you even have called me?”

“Since I didn’t have your number,” Yuuri says, “the answer is no.”

Another kiss; this time, Victor holds him close, clutching him. “So we wouldn’t have talked until worlds? Yuuri, that’s scary.”

They haven’t stopped kissing, trading little heated sips of air back and forth.

“Victor, I was kind of falling apart when we first met. If I hadn’t been trying to impress you, I would have totally fucked up my prep for nationals. I’m not sure I’d have been selected to go to worlds.”

Victor hugs him even closer. “That’s frightening. You mean we might not have even met? What would have happened?”

“Don’t worry.” Yuuri kisses him again. “I’d have found a way to call you, my Victor. I’ve been trying to call in some way or another since I was twelve. The miraculous part is that it took me so long to succeed.”

“Oh.” Victor nuzzles into Yuuri. “And you say this isn’t a love out of legend. Listen to you, Yuuri.”

“Why would I do that, when I can listen to _you?”_

Victor laughs softly and kisses him again. Kissing feels like something they’ve been doing forever, something they could do forever. Victor’s lips are warm, his hands are warm, and his body is warm. Kissing Victor is as natural as breathing, and maybe that’s why they fall asleep doing it.

#

Yesterday seems impossible when Yuuri wakes up tangled in Victor and morning sunshine. His phone is making some kind of a terrible sound—oh, right, Phichit’s ring tone. Yuuri reaches over and swiftly rejects the call before it wakes Victor.

Victor’s sound asleep. Yuuri gets the impression he’s kind of an early bird compared to Yuuri, but jet lag is not in his favor this time around.

Sleeping Victor is devastatingly beautiful. His eyelashes are gray and long; his nose is sweet and perfect. He looks younger when he sleeps, boyish and sweet.

A notification flashes on his phone screen. _Yuuri I know you’re alive and awake if you just sent my damned call to voicemail. What the hell is going on? Where are you?! The hotel won’t give out your room number to me or Celestino. Something about “privacy” and “safety.” Boo. Call me._

Yuuri picks up his phone and opens the message app.

Oh. Victor’s two hundred some odd texts last night. He knows Victor said not to read them, but…

He tentatively opens messages anyway.

_Hey, Yuuri, is everything okay? I was just wondering._

_Ha, that sounds so stupid. Obviously something’s not okay because you’re in there and I’m out here._

_It’s okay if it’s not okay!_

_I mean it’s not okay if it’s not okay. I don’t want to trivialize your not okayness._

_…Is that bad grammar?_

_…Let’s talk, we should talk!_

_Do you want to call me, or…_

_Sure, if that’s better, I guess I’ll call you._

_Or. Not._

Yuuri’s heart hurts just reading this. He can almost relive what it must have been like for Victor, sitting outside in the hallway with no idea what was going on… Oh, Victor. Victor. Yuuri wants to make up that heartache to him, wants to do it in any and every way possible.

He’s just not sure it’s possible.

_Look, here’s a picture of a dog I saw on my flight. Maltese._

_Why was there a dog on my international flight? I bet you’re wondering._

_~~*~*~*drumroll*~*~*~~_

_He’s a seizure alert dog, and his name is Sasha! I didn’t know there was such a thing as seizure alert dogs. I would have sent him to you earlier but then you would have asked questions like, Victor, why are you on a plane? and that would have ruined the surprise._

_Uh on second thought possibly I am getting the impression that I should have ruined the surprise, huh?_

_Do you think I could train Makkachin to be a seizure alert dog?_

_…Hey, I was just reading about seizure alert dogs and sometimes dogs just start alerting their owners that a seizure is coming on, and nobody knows how they know! Dogs are amazing!_

_Gasp._

_I just had a thought!_

_What if Makkachin is *already* a seizure alert dog? I’ve never had a seizure before, so how would I know?_

Yuuri feels his eyes sting with tears. His Victor is the best Victor, the absolute _best_ Victor in the entire world. Victor follows with another ten texts about dogs in general, and Makkachin in specific.

Then:

_Um, so, I don’t want to be presumptuous or anything, but… I might have noticed that sometimes you’re not okay with…things?_

Oh. Oh. That’s one way to put it. Not okay with things. Yuuri shuts his eyes. He’s finally getting to the part that Victor didn’t want him to see. The part where Victor figures out that Yuuri’s a hot mess, and tells him…

God, Yuuri doesn’t want to know what he tells him. He just knows that it’s going to hurt to read, and the only reason he keeps going on is because knowing that he hurt Victor, it feels only fair to hurt himself, too.

Painfully, stupidly, he pushes on.

_I just wanted you to know that I love you._

_And if you ever want to talk about this part of you, I’m pretty sure I will love it, too._

His breath hisses out. Oh. This. This is… This is…

Not what he expected. Not at all.

This is too much. Tears start welling, and he’s not going to cry, he’s _not_ going to cry.

“Yuuri. I thought I told you not to read my texts.” Victor’s voice is sleepy next to him on the bed.

“I, um.” Yuuri doesn’t bother to apologize. He just lets his phone drop. “You didn’t mean it? That’s why you didn’t want me to read it?”

He doesn’t specify which _it_ he means. It’s not the dog pictures. There can be only one _it_ in his life anymore, and it is _I love you. I will love this part of you, too._

Victor blinks sleepily and slowly sits up. “Of course I meant it. You know I meant it.”

Yuuri _does_ know. That’s the thing. He has known it in his toes and his heart. He’s known it since he saw Victor sitting in the hallway last night, saying, _Hi Yuuri!_ as if the door had never slammed in his face.

He respected and worshipped Victor when he thought Victor was perfect, but the affection he feels for him has been essentially uncontainable since he discovered he was not. He just didn’t realize that Victor could feel the same way in return—that he could love imperfect, flawed, terrible Yuuri, not just the parts of him that are not hideous.

Victor smiles over at him. “I just meant to tell you romantically at a candlelit dinner with fireworks in the background and flowers on the table. Not like a dork by text because I was panicking.”

Yuuri shuts his eyes. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”

Victor shuffles closer. “That’s because I hadn’t told you yet.”

“No.” Yuuri can hear his voice shaking. “I… I didn’t know, and I should have. I’ve always felt like… Like when people try to get close to me? I’ve felt like they want to make a photo album of all the prettiest moments. Like they’re on tour and I’m some…kind of undiscovered country, and what they want is for someone to show them all the nice spots so when they leave they can say, ‘oh, yes, I remember my trip, I loved Yuuri, that was so great.’”

“Oh, Yuuri.”

“And…” Yuuri chokes for a moment on his own emotion. Victor’s hand touches his back, steadying him. “And you, Victor. _You._ I wanted you so much. I wanted you to have the _best_ tour. I wanted you to be delighted at your discovery. I wanted you to remember me so well, to think that maybe you might want to come back later.”

Victor’s breath sighs out. “I think you spent too long in America.”

“Hmm?” Yuuri raises his head. “No, it wasn’t just in America. This one guy—”

“Not what I meant.” Victor leans in and touches Yuuri’s nose with his. “Yuuri, I can’t discover a country that already has an inhabitant.”

Yuuri exhales. He’s steeled himself for so much from Victor, for every incursion he’s made on his heart. He opens his eyes, and there’s that look on Victor’s face, the one he’s seen before. _Come hither._

Not, _let me leave my mark on you._ It is—and it always has been— _come hither._

Yuuri’s been wrong. So, so wrong. There has been no invasion, no tourism, no sightseeing. Every step Victor has taken to meet him has been an invitation, not an intrusion.

It’s still scary. Yuuri still cares, so, so much. Victor still holds Yuuri’s heart in the palm of his hands, but his grip is gentle, as if Yuuri’s heart pumps blood to both of them in tandem.

Yuuri goes through his options. Carefully, he stands up and starts to cross the room. A half second too late, he realizes how this will look.

He turns around to Victor, who is watching him with round eyes.

“I’m not leaving,” he explains. “I’m just…” Well. “Scratch that,” he says, “I am leaving, but just to go in here.” He gestures to the bathroom. “I will be back. Really, really soon. Okay?”

In the bathroom, he cuts his nails as short as he can and washes his hands, before returning.

Victor is watching him with wide eyes. “Is everything okay?”

“Yeah.” Yuuri slides next to Victor on the bed. “I…”

Words fail. Instead he reaches out and sets his hand against Victor’s face. Victor’s eyes shiver shut.

“I just am really glad I got to wake up to you.”

“Me too.” Victor gives him a smile. It’s still a little sleepy.

“Jetlagged?”

“So much. But I have to get up even though it’s the middle of the night or everything will be messed up later.” Victor makes the most adorable face, his eyes squeezing shut, as he tries to gather energy.

Yuuri lets his hand play through Victor’s hair. “Or you can…” He swallows. “You can let me wake you up?”

Victor’s eyes pop open, his pupils dark. “Um.”

Just in case there’s any doubt, Yuuri lets his hand trail down Victor’s abs.

Victor nods vigorously. “Um. Yes. Yes, you can wake me up.”

He’s already awake, if his dick is any indication. It’s half hard when Yuuri’s hand encounters it through his underwear, still a little curved, with a little give to the skin when he caresses it through the fabric.

Victor lets out a sigh. “Yuuri. That’s… You don’t have to…”

“I told you last night. I want to. Is this okay?” He hooks his thumbs in Victor’s underwear, and Victor nods, lifting his hips so that Yuuri can inch the fabric down. Up close, Victor’s beautiful—long and growing—and Yuuri leans down to nuzzle him.

Victor twitches when Yuuri runs his lips along his cock; his hands clench in the sheets.

Yuuri swallows him.

In the last week, he’s read a lot on the internet about giving blowjobs.

Sex advice is like skating advice—it doesn’t matter whether you’ve memorized the physics or been given a point-by-point demonstration. The execution is never the same as the analysis.

And the execution goes like this: It’s Victor, Victor who’s letting him suck him off, Victor who’s hard for him, Victor who’s making those little gasps. His hips move up, seeking, and Yuuri swallows him as deep as he can.

Clickbait articles on giving the perfect blowjob fail to mention that when your partner is the hottest man on earth, it’s hard to keep your mind on exactly what your tongue is doing. Yuuri just wants him.

“God, Yuuri. Yuuri. You’re so… You’re the beautiful, you’re the most beautiful, I wish you could see what you look like.” Victor’s hands slide through Yuuri’s hair. “Is this okay?”

“Yeah. You can pull a little, too. I like that.”

It’s so much easier when they don’t have to narrate it.

“Yuuri, I’m getting close. I’m so close.”

Yuuri pulls away; Victor whines, just a little, his hand going to his own dick.

“No,” Yuuri says. “Let me—I just want…” He finds the bottle of lube from last night. “Can I?”

“Do anything,” Victor says.

He lubes up his finger, and Victor’s legs fall open for him. He’s warm, so warm; his hole is puckered and waiting. He twitches when Yuuri touches him, and gasps when Yuuri swirls his fingers suggestively around the edges. He can feel the moment Victor relaxes into his touch.

Yuuri slides one finger in.

“Ahh.” Victor’s hands clench.

Victor’s tight and hot around him, and all the articles have said that the prostate is supposed to be right there, right…

“Up,” Victor tells him. “Up just a little—oh, god, Yuuri, Yuuri, right there, right there, keep doing that.”

Yuuri leans down and takes Victor’s dick back in his mouth. He hollows his cheeks, sucking him, _wanting_ him. Wanting him so much. He wants Victor to know how Yuuri feels, in his body, in his heart, in his dick…

“Fuck, Yuuri. Now. I’m going to—fuck, that’s so fucking hot, fuck.” Victor pulses in his mouth, and Yuuri lets his come fill his mouth, slightly salty. Victor gasps, and Yuuri finally lifts his head and looks at him.

Victor’s watching him in something like awe. “Nobody’s ever swallowed my come before.”

“How is that possible?” Yuuri slowly pulls away. “I’ve been fantasizing about that since I first discovered what a blowjob was.”

“Oh, you liked it?” A faint blush paints Victor’s cheeks. “That’s…um. Great.”

“I loved it,” Yuuri says. He crawls awkwardly up so that he’s eye to eye with Victor again, which—since he’s not wearing his glasses—is pretty much the only way he can see the detail of his eyes—blue and flecks of gold and… And Yuuri is stalling.

He sets his clean hand against Victor’s cheek and takes hold of his jangling nerves. “I love you, too.”

Nothing this weekend will be as hard as those four words. Nothing will be as perfect as Victor’s stunned reaction—the way his mouth drops open, the surprised intake of air. His eyes glisten with moisture, and he turns and wipes them.

“That’s _so_ not fair,” he says. “Yuuri, that’s how _I_ wanted to tell you! Romantically. Sweetly. Not stupidly in an utter _panic_.”

“You mean not when I most needed to hear it?”

Victor melts. “Oh.”

Yuuri kisses him. “It _was_ romantic. It was romantic for me.”

“Let me.” Victor reaches up and slides his hand around Yuuri’s neck. He’s flushed all over. “Let me do you.” His hand slides down Yuuri’s chest, down his abs, to palm his groin. “Oh, Yuuri.” It’s said almost reverently. “Let me, please.”

He’s stroking Yuuri’s cock through his pajamas, and Yuuri almost gives in. “Wait,” he manages to say before his brain shuts off completely. “Wait. One…problem.”

Victor pauses. His face grows blank.

“Um, the men’s short program is today? I’m supposed to be on the ice for morning practice in…” Yuuri glances at the clock. “…Oh fuck, thirty-seven minutes. And since, um, I skipped yesterday afternoon, I _really_ can’t…um, let myself get worn out this early?”

“I forgot.” Victor starts laughing. “I can’t believe you made me forget that you have to skate today. Do you want me to, um, not be around you, or…”

“Did you want to go sightseeing instead?”

Victor is still smiling, but there’s a plastic quality to it. “If you want me to.”

“Or did you want to come with me?”

The way Victor snaps his head to look at him at that, breaking out into a brilliant grin, makes it entirely clear which one he prefers. “Is that okay?”

“Of course it’s okay.”

“Then…” Victor’s hand is still on Yuuri’s dick, and Yuuri is still hard. Victor gives him a brief caress. “Then I guess I’m going to have to owe you one.”

Yuuri shuts his eyes, tells his dick to behave, and briefly wonders why he has to start making good choices _now,_ as opposed to an hour from now.

“I’ll hold you to it.”

“I have to go back to my room for clothes and stuff. Meet you back here in twenty-five minutes?”

#

“Hi, um, Celestino.” Yuuri raced through the world’s shortest shower, and is currently hopping into his track pants one-handed.

“Yuuri, I was a little worried when you didn’t come to practice yesterday and I didn’t hear from you last night. But you got in? No problems?”

“Um, I’m fine.” He glances over at the door. “It’s just that something came up. I…was wondering. Is it…too late to add another member to my team? Someone who can get rinkside privileges?”

“That’s right, your old ballet teacher is going to be here. I like Minako!”

“No, um.” Yuuri pulls a shirt over his head, and then finds socks. “Minako isn’t getting in until this afternoon. He’s, um.” He feels his face grow red, because he’s basically about to admit to his coach that Victor flew around the world just to bang him. “He’sVictorNikiforov,” he mutters all as one word.

“Oh.” There’s a pause. “ _Victor_ is with you?”

“Um, yes.”

“In…what capacity is he a part of your skating team, exactly?”

Yuuri worries at his lip. _Fucking the anxiety out of me_ is not an actual position on a skating team, and besides, after eight weeks of sexual experience with Victor, his anxiety is still in full force.

“ _You_ know,” he answers after a longer pause. “Just…stuff.”

Celestino sighs. “Yuuri, you’re an adult and in control of your own career. If you say Victor is on your team, Victor is on your team. Just remember that he’s very young.”

Yuuri pushes his foot into one shoe and ties it. “He’s literally four years older than me.”

“Well.” Celestino is using his _yes, but_ I’m _actually an adult, and not just one in name only_ voice. “St. Petersburg is very far away, and Victor has a reputation for, um…not being the most consistent person.”

Honestly. Yuuri feels his nose scrunching at this. The whole playboy thing has been completely made up by the media. The media has never seen Victor texting about how he only eats yogurt because Makkachin likes it. Yuuri knows Victor better than the media.

Yuuri wants to fight the media for what it has done to Victor.

Celestino is still talking. “And Victor has a lot of decisions he has to make in the coming months. Obviously. Don’t do anything irrevocable, okay?”

“It’s not like we’re planning to get married this weekend.” Although… No. Definitely no good. Even Yuuri knows it’s stupid to marry someone when you’ve spent less than twelve sober hours in their company.

“Okay, okay, there’s no need to be sarcastic,” Celestino says. “I just want you to know that I’m here for you. I don’t want you to get hurt.”

Yuuri can’t help but feel annoyed. Celestino didn’t say anything to Screaming Craig at the ice rink when he was practically harassing Yuuri to go out with him, but he’ll warn Yuuri about a completely consensual relationship with Victor? Boo. Yuuri’s demonstrably more likely to do damage than Victor. Honestly.

“That’s not likely, you know. He’s actually really sweet,” Yuuri says, and he can feel himself blush.

Celestino makes a noise in the back of his throat. “I _really_ didn’t ask. But fine. I’ll go let the ISU know that Victor should get a rink pass. You get yourself and your…whatever he calls himself…down here for practice as soon as possible. You understand?”

Yuuri nods. “Yes, coach.” He hangs up.

#

Victor is waiting for him outside his room. He has not put on his usual ten million layers of Product™; in fact, he hasn’t even bothered to blow dry his hair, which has to be a first. It’s still wet and just a little ragged.

What he has bothered to do is…

“Hi, Yuuri, I got you breakfast. You have to eat something before you skate! Here, have this.” He gestures with one hand, in which he’s holding two brown paper bags. The other hand has a little drink container with two to-go cups.

“What is it?”

“I have no idea!” Victor says proudly. “I just pointed. It looked good? There’s one of, uh, these, instead, if you prefer.”

“What’s that?”

“No idea either.”

“I can’t believe you got me breakfast. You must have showered insanely fast.”

Victor just looks smug. “I _told_ you I was here to hold your ice. Now which one do you want? Let me take your skating stuff. You need to eat before you get on the ice.”

Both paper bags look identical, so Yuuri just takes the closest one with a murmured thanks. It’s some kind of flaky pastry with egg and green onions and meat—Yuuri thinks it’s probably pork, but who knows?—topped with a generous dose of sesame seeds. It’s good. Really good. The stuff in the to-go cup is also not coffee. Or tea. It’s a warm, sweetened soy milk, infused with roasted sesame seeds, and it’s also really good.

“I definitely need three hands,” Victor says as they make their way to the rink. “Then we could eat, carry your skating gear, and hold hands all at the same time.”

“If you had three hands,” Yuuri asks, “and you did a ’Tano variation on a jump with one of them over your head, could you use the other two for balance and still get credit? I wonder if it’s within the technical meaning of the rules. They don’t anticipate having more than two arms.”

Victor lights up. “Yuuri, that’s genius! If I ever get a third arm, I’m going to you first.”

They’re not surrounded the instant they enter the building, even though there are three reporters there, gathering footage and interviews for their later coverage. Yuuri ducks into the locker room to shed his coat and change into his skates. Victor comes with him, producing a blow dryer and a half-dozen tiny vials from the bag he had over his shoulder. He somehow manages to make himself look perfect in the space of time it takes Yuuri to lace up.

When they first come out onto the rink, nobody looks at Yuuri Katsuki, the man who flubbed the Grand Prix final, the man who barely scraped to first in Japan. They don’t immediately notice the man who is walking alongside him. His not-Victor disguise must be better than Yuuri had thought.

The press are crowded around some Canadian skater, who is boasting about what he can and will do.

They make it all the way to the boards before someone says his name in shock.

“Victor Nikiforov?”

Victor stops. Yuuri can see him stand just a little straighter, put on a smile that’s just a little too much dazzle. Yuuri frowns at Victor; Victor looks toward the coming onslaught of press as if they’re a wave to be withstood.

They crash over him, a mass of microphones and shouted questions.

“Victor Nikiforov, what are you doing here?”

“Victor, is there some competitor at the Four Continents in particular that you’re worried about?”

“Victor, what does your coach think about you missing time from your home rink?”

Victor smiles, but there’s something wrong with it.

“Victor, are you thinking of retiring? Are you passing on the torch to someone else?”

“Victor, tell us about your training regimen!”

“Victor, are you worried about JJ? He’s landed a quad lutz, we’ve heard, and he’s boasting about taking you on. Are you here to observe your competition?”

Someone steps between Yuuri and Victor, shoving a microphone in Victor’s face, nudging Yuuri back. Yuuri knows he should go. He has to practice. Victor will follow when he can. Then Victor glances in Yuuri’s direction, and that smile broadens, and Yuuri finally understands what’s wrong with it.

It’s fake.

It’s so obvious it’s fake, Yuuri can’t believe he’s never seen it before. But after months of seeing Victor’s smiles, ranging from shy lip-bitten delight to brilliant, dorky grins, he knows with unerring certainty: _This_ smile is fake.

Yuuri frowns. No wonder Victor stopped feeling human emotion. He isn’t allowed to display it.

And they’re acting like Yuuri’s not even here, like Victor has no connection to anyone or anything except his desire to win. Like they didn’t make him give up his sister, like Victor himself is nothing more than a collection of news items.

It’s one thing to push Yuuri to the side. It’s another thing entirely to do it to Victor.

“I’m here to visit a friend,” Victor is saying calmly.

Friend. _Friend._ Victor had volunteered to go sight-seeing. He’d said that he didn’t know what to tell people. He doesn’t know if Yuuri wants to acknowledge him publicly, even knowing that _that_ is going to make his head…how had Victor put it? It was going to make his head feel weird inside.

“My coach urged me to go. I’m not particularly worried about anyone here, although I do think that there’s one man who will give me some fierce competition at worlds.”

The press explodes. “Who is it? JJ?”

“JJ?” Victor frowns. “JJ… Um…?”

Yuuri pushes his way back through the crowd and comes to stand by Victor.

“There you are,” Victor says happily. “You all know Yuuri Katsuki, of course.”

There is a beat of silence. They _do_ know Yuuri, and he can guess what their faces are saying. You? What are _you_ doing with Victor? How did _you_ manage to steal him from skating for this time? Is this about that Twitter post?

“Victor,” someone asks, “what are you doing here with Katsuki?”

Something rises up in Yuuri—something strong and irrepressible and very, very angry. In his skates, he’s already as tall as Victor. He finds himself rising up on his toes, until he’s even taller. He looks the reporter in the eyes.

“Wrong question,” Yuuri says. “The question is, what am _I_ doing with _him?”_

There is a moment of impossible silence. _Bad idea,_ some part of Yuuri’s mind urges. _Really bad idea. Definitely don’t do this._

He does it anyway. Yuuri reaches out and entwines his hand with Victor’s. “The answer,” Yuuri hears himself say calmly, “is everything. Whatever you’re imagining me doing to him, I’ve already done it. Twice.”

Beside him, Victor chokes.

Fuck, fuck, fuck. He just said that. Aloud. To the press. Holy fucking shit. Yuuri can feel himself blush. He must be a brilliant canvas of pink. He glances over at Victor, and…

Oh. Victor looks absolutely stunned. Pleased. The press takes one moment to process this, before utterly exploding in questions.

“Victor, are you dating Yuuri Katsuki?”

“How long has this been going on?”

“What brought you two together? Was it Katsuki’s Twitter post?”

They don’t pause long enough to let either of them talk. Finally, Victor raises his free hand. “We’ve been together long enough to do everything twice, but not long enough to get to it a third time. Now if you don’t mind, my Yuuri needs to go practice. I’m just here to watch him get gold and look beautiful.”

#

“Oh my god.” Yuuri is not sure how he’s speaking and hyperventilating at the same time, but somehow he’s managing it. “Oh my god, I just told them… I said… It’s not even _true,_ I just got mad because they were crowding you.”

“Yuuri, I’ve survived the press before.” If it weren’t for that note of amusement in Victor’s voice, Yuuri thinks he would crawl under the benches at the side of the rink.

But it hadn’t been that they were crowding Victor—not physically, not with their questions. It had just been the way Victor put on that fake smile, the one that made him feel as if Victor was retreating. Somehow, hearing Victor talk about not feeling things, and then seeing that odd smile on his face…

Yuuri hides his face in his hands. “I’m so embarrassed. I basically announced to the world that we were, um. I didn’t even ask you if you wanted to tell anyone!”

“Don’t be embarrassed on _my_ behalf.” Victor’s hand touches his elbow. “I loved it. And if I didn’t want anyone to know we were together, I wouldn’t have shown up at Four Continents.”

Yuuri inhales. All of this makes sense. He’s not used to things making sense. “Oh.” His eyes squeeze shut. “Well. I guess there’s only one thing to do now.”

Victor just sounds curious when he answers. “What’s that?”

But before Yuuri can reply, they’re interrupted. “Yuuri, you _liar,”_ says someone behind him. “You big gigantic liar! I can’t believe you.”

Victor’s hand yanks away from his shoulder before Yuuri can react. “Look,” he hears Victor saying, “I don’t know who you are, but—”

_“You don’t know who I am?!”_

Yuuri straightens hastily. Victor is standing between him and his would-be attacker, glaring at him and holding him at bay. Phichit frowns at Yuuri under Victor’s shoulder.

“I can’t believe you, Yuuri! He doesn’t know who I am?! What the _hell?”_

“Uh, right!” Yuuri flushes. “Hey, Victor. Um. Let me. Um.” He steps between the two of them, takes Victor’s hand—outstretched, finger pointed in accusation—and flattens it out, straightening his fingers. Victor peers at him curiously.

“Victor Nikiforov, this is Phichit Chulanont. Phichit, this is Victor.”

Victor’s frown deepens. “Oh,” he finally says. “ _You’re_ the one that said Yuuri was oblivious. I remember hearing about you now.”

Yuuri clicks his tongue and pulls Victor’s hand forward into handshake position.

Phichit reaches forward and takes the hand that Yuuri has modified. “I’m Yuuri’s best friend and former roommate. I’ve seen him naked more than you have.”

“ _Phichit!”_

“How does that matter?” Victor says a little coldly. “I’ve seen him naked _better_ than you have.”

“Guys, guys, we are all friends here.”

“Oh, we’re friends, are we?” Phichit frowns at Yuuri, before pulling out his phone and bringing up their text conversations from the last month. That text about hamster physiology, then…

_Hey Yuuri, just wanted to check in with you. What’s new?_

_Oh, just practicing my quad sow._

“See?” Phichit demands. “ _See_ what I mean?”

Victor frowns at the screen.

“Look. Look back!” Phichit scrolls.

_Yo Yuuri, now that you’re back in Japan and on a college campus, are you finally getting laid?_

_There’s nothing to talk about in that regard._

“I thought we were friends!” Phichit said. “Since when did _the entire press_ discover you were fucking Victor Nikiforov before me?”

Victor bites his lip, and looks over at Yuuri.

“See?” Phichit gestured. “Even _Victor_ thinks you should have told me!”

“Um—sorry! It just—I—”

“I _don’t_ think that.” Victor is definitely frowning at Phichit’s phone.“Yuuri can tell you whatever he wants whenever he wants. I really don’t care. I just want to know…”

He pauses, and Yuuri holds his breath.

“Where did you get this picture of Yuuri?” He points to Yuuri’s avatar.

“Victor, my man.” Phichit straightens and tosses him a grin. “I have _years_ of quality Yuuri photos here. You want bedhead Yuuri?”

“Who doesn’t?”

“I have bedhead Yuuri. You want Yuuri sleeping? Yuuri drunk?”

Victor nods after each one.

“You want Yuuri…pole-dancing?”

“Phichit!” Yuuri hisses.

“No, I already have plenty of those,” Victor says politely.

“Yuuri!” Phichit laughs. “Your godsons are going to be so proud. Speaking of whom!”

“If you’ve been running experiments trying to get hamster-based super powers, so help me—”

“What?”

“The radiation.”

“The radiation?” Phichit looks confused for a moment. “Oh, _that_ radiation. You were utterly useless as a physiology consult, but I managed to ask my vet in a roundabout way that made it look like I wasn’t planning on breaking international laws. It turns out that the airline carry-on scanning machines—what do you call them?—in any event, they don’t emit enough radiation to be dangerous!”

Yuuri’s watching Phichit dig through his large bag with something like dread in his heart. “You did _not._ You did _not_ bring those poor creatures illegally on a plane from Detroit all the way to Taiwan—”

“I know you missed them. Don’t even pretend otherwise. I only brought one of them down to the rink, though. Arthur! Here he is!”

He turns, cradling Arthur, and Yuuri, who never had thought of himself as a hamster person before he met Phichit, holds out his hands.

Arthur squeaks happily.

“Oh.” Yuuri can’t help but smile shyly. “I can’t believe he still remembers me.”

“It’s only been a couple of months. He’s not stupid.”

“He is stupid,” Yuuri reminds him.

But… Arthur. He’s not Vicchan, but Yuuri once nursed him through a hamster version of a cold when Phichit had gone home for a family wedding, and he’s felt close to him ever since. There’s something about a warm creature with fur that’s soothing.

“Hey, Arthur,” Yuuri hears himself coo.

Arthur squeaks happily and rubs his snout against Yuuri’s thumb.

“I’m so happy to see you.” Yuuri glances up at Phichit. “Even if you shouldn’t be here. But I have to skate. We’ll catch up later, little guy.”

Arthur squeaks again, and Phichit takes him back.

“Arthur.” Phichit extends his hand.“Here. Meet Victor Nikiforov. He’s dating Yuuri.”

Victor just smiles in confusion. “Um. That’s a very nice…um…gerbil?”

Phichit pulls his hands to his chest protectively. “I can understand Yuuri barely mentioning _me_. Whatever; he probably just wanted my Instagram to speak for itself. But Yuuri didn’t mention his godsons to you? My dear, beloved children? Yuuri, how can I entrust them to your care if anything happens to me if I am not assured of your undying love?”

Victor blinks. “You have…children? Are you even an adult?”

“They’re hamsters,” Yuuri whispers behind a hand.

Phichit gasps. “You can’t say ‘they’re hamsters’ in that tone of voice. You have to say it like this: They’re _hamsters!”_ Phichit punches his fist upward. “These are not _just_ anything. I have committed _felonies_ for my hamsters!”

“Misdemeanors,” Yuuri whispers to Victor, again behind a hand.

“Really?” Victor’s eyes sparkle. “Are we talking assault?”

Phichit gives a shifty look from side to side, then gestures Victor closer. “I,” he stage-whispers, “am a hardened hamster-trafficker.”

“Oh no,” Yuuri intones. “Someone call the police.”

“They wanted to keep my hamsters in quarantine for _six months_ in the US.”

“Oh, quarantine rules.” Victor leans forward. “I also hate quarantine rules!”

Phichit cradles his hamster. “They won’t let me take Arthur with me, and he’s my good luck hamster and completely necessary for skating.”

“Monsters!” Victor says. “I was actually thinking of this on the plane just yesterday because don’t you think I should be able to take Makkachin with me? If I told everyone that Makkachin was my seizure alert dog—”

“No,” Yuuri says, “no, don’t. That’s really wrong. You can’t…you just can’t take advantage of disability laws like that. It weakens the system for the people who really need it.”

His insistence on following laws falls on deaf ears.

“Did you know,” Victor is saying, “that Makkachin _is_ a seizure alert dog? She’s alerted me fifteen minutes in advance of every seizure I’ve ever had.”

“You’ve never had a seizure!” Yuuri hisses, remembering the texts Victor sent.

Victor just beams. “Well, see? No false positives. That’s good, right?”

Phichit is apparently convinced of Victor’s seriousness. “Right?! I built a little hamster-carton to take them over in my backpack, designed for both comfort and camouflage. It blends into the bottom of the pack. It’s like…” He pauses. “It’s like Anne Frank’s hidden annex, but with hamsters.”

“Phichit,” Yuuri says because he’s apparently the only person in this ice rink with a sense of reasonable proportion, “do _not_ compare animal import regulatory systems to genocide. That’s really not okay.”

“But _hamsters.”_

Yuuri scowls at him.

“Fine.” Phichit throws his hands in the air. “It isn’t like hiding from the Nazis. _You_ come up with something, Mr. Goody-Two-Shoes, if you’re going to be so exacting.”

“How about…imposing reasonable health regulations?”

Phichit turns to Victor. “No fun,” he says. “You see what I had to work with? Three years together in Detroit, and he’s still _no fun.”_

“Hey!”

“I don’t know,” Victor muses. “I have photographic evidence that suggests otherwise.”

Yuuri feels his whole body go cold. “Victor.”

Phichit’s eyes light up. “Yuuri, you dirty, dirty skater. I’m so proud.”

“Oh, no!” Victor shakes his head. “I wasn’t referring to his nudes. Those are personal, and I would never share them. I meant—”

“ _Yuuri.”_ Phichit laughs. “It’s enough to know they exist in the world!”

“Victor.” Yuuri hides his head in his hands.

“Uh, I mean, that is…if they existed?” Victor adds, about nine moments too late for any real verisimilitude.

Yuuri sighs. “Maybe we should talk about something else. Maybe we should skate.”

“Wait,” Victor said, “I want to hear more about this violating quarantine for animals. I think it would be a little hard to get Makkachin in a backpack, though.”

“Oooh,” Phichit says. “I have ideas! Especially if you don’t mind bribing people? My dad used to be an ambassador, so I’ve learned a _lot_ about back-channel pet importation.”

“Phichit, no.”

“Phichit, yes!” Victor nods. “What is the _point_ of having money?”

“I like your boyfriend,” Phichit tells Yuuri. “I can tell we’re going to be tight. We can swap stories about Yuuri. Tell me, how did you get him to _notice_ that you liked him? That’s always been the hard part.”

Victor smiles at Phichit, but there’s suddenly a cold gleam in his eye. “Oh. That’s right. You think Yuuri is oblivious.”

“He _is_ oblivious.”

“He is not.”

Yuuri has never been fought over in this particular way.

“Buddy, I have _years_ of war stories to disprove you. Let’s take Craig, shall we?”

Victor’s eyes narrow. “Screaming Craig, is this? I’ve heard of him. I already hate him.”

“Yuuri’s side of the Craig story is boring. So Craig keeps trying to ask Yuuri out. And it’s like, ‘Oh Yuuri, do you want to go see the new Captain America with me.’ And Yuuri says… What do you think he says?”

Victor shakes his head. “‘No’?”

“Ha. He says: ‘Oh, it’s okay, I’m not American.’ So Craig tries to explain Captain America—”

“Loudly,” Yuuri mutters, “with very small words and very short sentences, because he assumed the problem was that I _didn’t_ _understand_ _him.”_

“And Yuuri says, ‘I’m not really interested in army movies.’”

“That’s reasonable. Who would be?”

“And so Craig says, ‘I’m interested in you,’ and Yuuri says—and I kid you not, it’s legend at the ice rink— ‘Why? I’m not that interesting.’ And he walks off.”

“Unconvincing.” Victor shrugs. “This Craig person couldn’t figure out that Yuuri was rejecting him, but Yuuri is the oblivious one?”

Phichit pauses. “Well. But. There are other stories.”

“No, there aren’t.” Victor sets one hand on Yuuri’s waist. “Maybe Yuuri’s too nice when he’s saying no to people who are interested in him—”

Phichit snickers. “Too nice, oh my god, I have to tell Leo that someone thinks Yuuri is _too nice.”_

“—but you only think he’s oblivious because he wanted to tell them all no. _I_ know he’s not oblivious, because he says yes to me. All the time.”

This is blatantly false, and there is a hotel hallway that could give the lie to that statement. Still, Victor smiles at Yuuri, and Yuuri smiles back in confused delight. He still doesn’t understand _how_ he managed to get here, but they’re here.

“Yuuri. Phichit! Why are neither of you on the ice? Move, move!”

“Uh, hi, Celestino,” Yuuri says, forcibly looking away from Victor’s eyes. “It’s nice to see you, too.”

“Two laps, immediately, and then Yuuri, I want to see your short program run through.”

Yuuri jumps; Phichit laughs, and Yuuri barely has a chance to throw his skateguards at Victor before he’s skating off with his rinkmate.

“Oh my god.” Phichit giggles as they circle the rink. “Yuuri, are you aware that Victor Nikiforov is really, really into you?”

All those years when Phichit called him oblivious? It’s payback time. Yuuri does his best to look innocent.

“Who, _Victor?”_ he says.

“ _Yes,_ Victor.”

“I wouldn’t say that.”

“Yuuri, he is _so_ into you, he flew here. Even you have to notice that.”

“I would say,” Yuuri says, “that he’s in love with me.”

Phichit chokes.

#

“Here,” Victor says as Yuuri skates to the rinkside thirty minutes later. “Have some water.”

“Mmm. Thanks.”

“And this.” Victor pulls out his phone. “This part right here, I can just see you getting all tense on the ice right before your quad combo. What if you added something like that little three-step thing I did in my 2014 program before my quad lutz?”

Yuuri needs no more explanation. “Like this?”

Yuuri skates away, imagining his music. Spin, straighten, spin faster, curve around the rink, three-step-thing, a change of foot…

He hits the quad toe loop, and adds a single-armed ’Tano variation on the double toe loop that follows.

“Yuuri,” Celestino calls, “that was incredible!”

At the side of the rink, Victor gives him a thumbs up.

#

Minako is waiting for him after practice. She practically pounces on him as he exits the stadium in search of lunch.

“Yuuri, I saw footage of you from practice. You looked great.”

“Uh, hi Minako.” Yuuri looks around, but Victor had been hanging back a little, talking to Celestino for some reason.

“But there are the most ridiculous rumors going around about you and—” She stops mid-sentence, her mouth falling open, and Yuuri realizes that Victor has come up to him and slipped an arm around his waist.

“Me and training a quad flip,” Yuuri prompts. “Me and my classes at school, me and…”

“Hi, Minako!” Victor says politely. He carefully removes his hand from Yuuri’s waist and extends it for a handshake. “I’ve heard so much about you! I’m Victor Nikiforov.”

“I…know?” She looks at Yuuri. “Yuuri?”

Yuuri just entwined his fingers in Victor’s. “What?”

She shakes her head in disbelief. “Don’t read the news.”

#

Of course Yuuri reads the news over lunch.

He even opens Twitter, something he hasn’t done since the Unfortunate Incident Involving Victor’s Butt.

_@katsukiyuri You don’t honestly think you’re good enough for Victor, do you?_

_@katsukiyuri Victor belongs to ALL of Russia, you can’t have him._

Someone has made a gif compilation of Yuuri’s worst on-ice wipeouts, and has tagged them both.

_I guess you could say that @katsukiyuri FELL for @vnikiforov. HA HA HA._

“Yuuri, don’t look,” Celestino begs.

“They’re wrong,” Victor says.

Funny. They act like Yuuri is made of glass, and maybe he is. But the thing about having a heart that shatters easily is that Yuuri’s learned to reforge it again and again. They can break Yuuri’s heart over and over, but his heart doesn’t stay broken.

Nothing they can say will ever be more cruel than the things Yuuri has told himself, and next to what Yuuri has whispered to himself in the darkest portions of the night, these foolish attempts at needling him seem amateurish.

If _he_ can realize he’s good enough for Victor, he can show the whole world.

#

It feels strange to have Victor Nikiforov waiting for him at the Kiss and Cry after his short program. Celestino claps Yuuri on the back and tells him that he did very well, very well, very much the redemption from the Grand Prix final. Yuuri tries not to make a face, all too aware of the little mistakes that must have seemed so obvious to Victor.

He’d wanted to show everyone, and he’d been good—not not quite good enough. There was that over-rotated triple axle. A stupid error that had downgraded the GOE on his triple-triple combo from his usual high marks. Neither were the worst mistake he’s ever made, but it wasn’t quite the performance he had hoped for.

“I’m so proud of how far you’ve come these past two months.”

“Okay.” Yuuri interrupts Celestino’s praise. “We need to work on the transition out of my step sequence—”

“We’ll work on it for worlds. For now, I’d like you to take a moment to enjoy having a good performance.” Celestino asks. “There’s time to critique it later. Focus on what you did well, for once. Surely you agree, Victor.”

“I _was_ thinking about that transition,” Victor says, “and actually, I have some ideas. The way you have it set up, if you mess up at any point in the prior sequence, you’re going to be on the wrong foot. What’s with that? It’s incredibly sloppy, and—”

Celestino clears his throat. “Victor.”

“Oh.” Victor colors faintly. “I mean, you did great, Yuuri!” That fake smile touches his lips. Somehow, that makes it all worse.

Yuuri is aware that he should be happy about his score when it flashes on the screen—it’s a season’s best by twelve points, and his personal best by a wide margin, too. Celestino hugs him—Yuuri tries not to tense up when he does so—and as soon as he lets go, _Victor_ hugs him, and Yuuri tries not to melt on international television.

“Rest,” Celestino tells him, when the last skaters have finished, and Yuuri finds himself—shockingly—in third place. “I’ll see you tomorrow.” He eyes the two of them all too carefully, then sighs. “Don’t…strain yourself.”

Yuuri can’t believe that his coach is telling him not to have too wild sex.

“Don’t worry,” Victor calls. “I’ll do all the work!”

Yuuri waits until they’ve started walking back to the hotel. “ _Victor.”_

“Sorry, too much?” Victor asks a little too innocently.

Yuuri just looks at him. “There’s no way you’re doing all the work,” he finally says. “I’m…not sure what we’re doing tonight, but whatever we’re doing, I’m all in. Okay?”

“Oh.” Victor blushes again. “Okay.” The look he gives Yuuri is utterly adorable.

It’s amazing to Yuuri that he can get Victor to blush. Victor is supposed to be an international heartthrob. He’s supposed to be an accomplished playboy. He’s not supposed to be…sweet, vulnerable, and open.

They walk back to the hotel, hand in hand. Yuuri is aware that people are taking pictures of them, and he doesn’t care. He wants everyone to take pictures. He wants everyone to know that Victor is here for _him._ He wants them to know that when they see Victor tomorrow, looking perfectly satisfied, that it’s because of Yuuri. He doesn’t want anyone to doubt.

#

“Let me give you a massage,” Victor says suggestively in their hotel room, as Yuuri is taking a bath.

Yuuri lets him.

This turns out to be a mistake. Yuuri is horny, but he’s also exhausted. The last thing he remembers is Victor’s hand on his calf, stretching his muscles.

Then he’s asleep.

#

Yuuri wakes the next morning tangled in Victor again. Victor’s hand lies over Yuuri’s heart, and he’s snuggled against Yuuri’s side. His breathing is even; he’s stripped down to his briefs, and he’s so utterly heartstoppingly perfect that Yuuri scarcely knows what to do with him.

Today is an off day between events, and while Yuuri has practice tomorrow, there’s time. Time to talk; time to do other things.

He considers everything he could possibly do to the man sleeping next to him. He could kiss him. He could hold him forever. He could make love to him.

His stomach turns over in clenching anticipation.

Instead, Yuuri gets up and finds a clean pair of track pants and a T-shirt. After he’s dressed, he sits next to Victor on the bed. His fingers brush Victor’s hair back; his heart aches with affection. He wants him so much, cares about him so much. He leans down so that his lips are close to Victor’s ear.

“Hey, Victor,” he says in as cheerful a tone as he can manage. “It’s seven a.m.! Are you on your morning run yet?”

Victor’s eyes pop open. “What? Huh? Yuuri?”

“Your schedule says you’re supposed to be running now. What’s going on?”

“Yuuri, I’m still jetlagged.”

Yuuri grins all the more evilly. “Nothing like morning sunshine to reset your Circadian rhythms!” He can’t help but bite his lip in delight.

“Oh _no.”_ Victor sits up and rubs at his eyes. “I know what this is. This is payback.”

Yuuri can’t help himself. He giggles, and at the sound Victor smiles back.

“How are you going to get that fifth quad if you don’t start working on your stamina?” Yuuri chirps delightedly. “What’s taking you so long? Up, up.”

“Yuuri, I have to go get clothes.”

“You should really just move your stuff to my room. It’s just a pain to have you running back and forth.”

A faint blush spreads across Victor’s face. He looks down almost shyly. “Okay, my Yuuri. I’d…really like that.”

They meet twenty minutes later.

They’ve gone running together dozens of times since that first morning in Sapporo, but this is their first time going side by side. Victor’s legs are longer, and he’s faster on flats, but Yuuri beats him on hills. Victor starts off stronger, but once Yuuri’s warmed up, he feels like he can keep going forever.

Victor points out dogs to Yuuri with no sense of self-preservation or traffic. When he’s not doing that, Victor steals kisses—Yuuri’s nose, Yuuri’s cheeks, occasionally Yuuri’s lips—at intersections, while they wait with interlaced hands for the cars streaming past. Once Yuuri gets over the fact that everyone can _see,_ he finds, deep down, an intense satisfaction in the fact that _everyone_ can see, that they’ll know that Victor is beautiful and his, all his.

Victor looks hotter and hotter as the run goes on, his cheeks pinking up, his hair going from shiny perfection to spikes formed by his sweat.

On the way back, two streets from their hotel, they find a French bakery. Yuuri steadfastly ignores the golden, flaky pastries and orders a dark rye bread with raisins, an apple, and some tea. Victor points to a croissant with dark filling.

“You’re so good,” he says as they walk the remaining distance back. “I’m not supposed to cheat, but once every couple of weeks won’t hurt, right?”

Yuuri laughs awkwardly.

They sip their drinks as they’re waiting for the elevator, and Yuuri wants, he wants to give Victor everything.

 _I could love this part of you, too._ It’s scary and heady, all at once. Scary, because Yuuri is so used to hiding his flaws that even the thought of sharing one makes him want to flinch; heady because if he tells Victor this, and _that,_ and all of the other things he’s so assiduously hid, and Victor _stays…_

“I gain weight really easily,” Yuuri finally admits in the elevator. “I have to watch what I eat or it all goes to my belly and my thighs.” He looks down. “Plus, I’m not good. Not at all. I always mess up, and then I always have to diet. I was such a chubby little kid.”

“Really?” Victor looks Yuuri up and down. “Well. You must be very careful, because…”

Yuuri sighs. “I’m only allowed to have my favorite foods when I win competitions. I’m still holding onto my win from All Japan so I can have my mom’s katsudon. It’s worth waiting for.”

“Well, you can have a bite of my chocolate croissant.”

Yuuri makes a choking noise in his throat. The elevator dings for their floor and Victor winks at Yuuri.

“One tiny little bite. It won’t hurt, and I don’t mind if you taste my things.”

“Victor—you—”

Victor laughs as they get out of the elevator. “I know, I know. I told you! It’s like I’m twelve.”

“No, that’s not it. You didn’t _get_ a chocolate croissant.”

Victor frowns. “I didn’t?”

“Um, I’m pretty sure that was bean paste.”

“Oh, well. Beans are healthy! I wasn’t even cheating, hurray!”

“Um.” Yuuri giggles and swipes them into the room. “Not, um, cooked with nineteen kilos of sugar they’re not.”

They snuggle on the sofa. Yuuri lets himself have one tiny bite of Victor’s croissant, and feeds him pieces of his apple in exchange. He could get used to this, sitting so close that their legs get tangled together, exchanging coffee-red-bean flavored kisses with Victor.

“So,” Victor says as they finish the last bites of breakfast. “Can I see your schedule?”

“I’m meeting with Celestino at eleven.” That’s an hour and a half away; far enough that they have a little time together, but not so far that they can forget about it. “Lunch with Phichit after that, and then—”

“No, not your schedule for the competition.” Victor smiles winningly at Yuuri. “Your schedule for me.”

Yuuri swallows and flushes crimson. “Um. You mean…”

“I mean your schedule for having sex with me,” Victor says, as if that needed clarification. “It’s about me. Don’t you think I should get to see it?”

“Um.” Yuuri’s mind is flowing at the speed of gelatin—slowly, and in great, messy chunks. He exhales, inhales, and then thinks _what the hell._ “Sure.”

The now much-folded pieces of paper are in his carry-on. He picks them out and hands them to Victor. He can’t bring himself to meet his eyes.

Victor unfolds the pages and frowns at the front for a moment, before standing up and swiping a pen from the hotel desk.

“Sorry, “ he says. “All right if I make some modifications?”

Yuuri blushes. “I, um. Sure.”

Victor lays the paper down flat in front of him. Yuuri blushes harder. He’d forgotten that he had started by making a chart labeled _THINGS VICTOR LIKES ABOUT SOBER YUURI._ Victor bites his lip and crosses off _LIKES,_ replacing it with _LOVES._

Yuuri swallows.

“That’s not a terrible list,” Victor says, looking up, “but it really wouldn’t have been what I would have listed first. But we can talk about that later. Let’s move on to the schedule. Week 1: read the Joy of Gay Sex and make a list of all the things Victor might like.”

Yuuri knows what’s on the list. He…oh no, Victor’s reading it.

Victor flips the page, and then goes on to the next one, and the one after that. There’s so much on it. Yuuri’s half-embarrassed, half-turned on, just thinking about it.

Victor nods when he’s finished. “This is the list of things you want to do to me?”

“Yes?”

Victor glances back over the pages. “Yes.”

“Yes?”

Victor pats the text. “Yes to all of it.”

Yuuri blushes harder. “ _All_ of it?”

“Sure. I wouldn’t jump to twenty-seven right off the bat. We can build up to everything beyond that point. Besides, I didn’t bring anything like a dildo or a plug or a vibrator with me. So we can wait for most of these.”

“ _I_ brought a vibrator,” Yuuri admits.

Victor’s ears turn pink.

“No, I mean, we don’t have to…! It’s just, it was on the list. The sex schedule was so packed. I couldn’t take time off _this_ schedule just because I also had a major international skating competition going on!”

“So there’s more than just that list?”

Yuuri nods embarrassed, and Victor finds his place in the pages again, scanning through them.

“Wait, you were going to develop step-by-step procedures?”

“Shut up.” Yuuri hides his face.

“On _notecards?”_

“Shut _up,_ notecards are _awesome.”_

“I understand that, but your last week just says ‘develop sexual confidence’ without any further instruction. It seems a little sparse in comparison.”

“Shut uuupppp,” Yuuri sings. “I was going to figure it out when I got there. I had another couple of weeks until I got there.”

“Okay.” Victor nods. “Another modification, if I can.” He marks a giant X over the remainder of Yuuri’s schedule.

 _DO WHATEVER YOU WANT TO VICTOR,_ he writes in sloppy capitals over the remaining parts of Yuuri’s plan. _HE IS GOING TO LOVE IT._

Yuuri swallows.

“Like yesterday morning,” Victor says. “I still owe you from yesterday morning.” His hand shifts to Yuuri’s knee.

Oh. God.

“Victor.” Yuuri swallows. “I have to meet Celestino in just a little bit, and I still have to shower, and…”

“And it’s a big shower for a hotel room,” Victor says with a sloppy grin. And who is Yuuri to say no to the offer?

#

Ten minutes later, Yuuri finds himself naked and wet, kissing Victor’s throat with heated water running into his mouth. Victor’s skin is slick; Yuuri’s hands work up his thighs, through the short-trimmed silver hair at the base of his shaft.

“Do whatever I want,” Yuuri muses. “Does that include this?”

He foams his hands with soap and runs them up Victor’s cock. Victor gulps and throws back his head. Yuuri presses his own dick, hard and insistent, to Victor’s hip.

“Yes.” Victor’s eyes shiver shut. There are droplets on his lashes, and Yuuri goes up on his toes to kiss them away.

“What about this?” He tightens his grip and strokes harder, and Victor makes another noise.

“And you think _I’m_ a beautiful instrument,” Yuuri says. “Listen to you. I love the sounds you make, my Victor.”

“Don’t stop.” It’s almost a whimper, and Yuuri knows Victor’s referring to both the motion of his hands and the words coming out of his mouth.

They’re naked together, and Victor is hard and flushed all over, and—“I love you,” Yuuri whispers in his ear, and Victor comes all over his hand, hot and unexpected, with a series of gasps.

“Yuuri.” Another gasp, then Victor opens his eyes. “Yuuri.” He turns to Yuuri, a brilliant smile on his face. “Yuuri, let me.” Yuuri is hard against Victor’s skin and he wants. He wants him so much. He wants Victor’s hand, his mouth, his body, just like this—wet and slick and perfect, open for him, and for just one moment, Yuuri lets himself go, lets himself rock up against Victor’s utter perfection, lets Victor’s hand slide down his side and…

He feels a hint of nerves shoot through him and he pulls away. “Victor, I’m meeting with Celestino really soon. I have to skate. I…” _Can’t,_ he doesn’t say, because he can.

Victor just looks at him. “Please, Yuuri. I can’t owe you _two.”_

Yuuri hasn’t realized what he has been doing until this moment—with Victor naked before him, all but begging—but the truth hits him all at once. Of course. Of _course_ he is doing this.

He takes a step forward and sets a hand against Victor’s chest. “Yes,” he says in a low voice, reaching up to kiss Victor.

Victor’s arms come around him, holding him tight.

“Yes, you can. You can owe me two.”

Victor practically whines.

“I’m on edge. When I get out on the ice tomorrow, I’ll have been wanting you for days. I want you to know that every jump, every element I do, will be because I want you.”

“You’re _killing_ me.”

“You can owe me two,” Yuuri says, “and when this competition is over, you can pay me back all at once.”

#

Yuuri wants. He doesn’t stop wanting, not through his practice, with Victor watching him from the rinkside like he’s some kind of masterpiece. Not through dinner that night with Celestino and Minako, who luckily distract each other enough that they don’t quite notice how distracted Victor and Yuuri are by each other. Not through that night, where Victor throws himself around Yuuri and teases him, brushing against him in a way that is never quite accidental, until Yuuri is desperate.

He’s almost too horny to care that the news coverage passes him over with kind dismissal, as if his showing in the short program is a blip that can only be maintained if everyone else messes up.

He puts all his pent-up want on the ice in his morning practice session—his desire, all his want, everything that Victor makes him feel, and when he looks up from his step sequence to see Victor flushed and heated, it’s almost worth it.

Almost.

He wants Victor. Victor stands with him as the other groups skate, one by one—some good, some not quite good, none of them Victor. Victor holds the hamster cage when Phichit skates; Yuuri holds up Arthur so the hamster can see, even though hamster vision is really not designed to watch figure skating. Still, his desire pulses through his blood. He throws Phichit a hamster plushie at the end, and he wants. He wants Victor through his final six minute warm up.

Victor and Celestino are waiting for him in the skaters’ area when he gets off the ice.

“Good,” Celestino says. “You’ve really brought this program to the next level, Yuuri. I think you can make the podium, no matter what the commentators may be saying.”

That’s when a voice sounds behind him. “Victor, ha ha, it’s good to see you here. You don’t have to pretend you’re not spying on me.”

He and Victor turn around. It’s Jean-Jacques Leroy. He’s in first place after the short program, and like Yuuri, he’s just gotten off the ice. He has a towel looped around his neck, and he’s doing squats to keep warm. He’s also apparently talking to them.

“I don’t expect you to admit it,” JJ says, doing another squat. “But I know you’re nervous. You must have seen me land a quad lutz at Nationals.”

“Do you know this guy?” Victor asks Yuuri in a puzzled, low voice.

“That’s JJ. He was at the Grand Prix with us?”

“Huh.” Victor glances at him again. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen him before.”

“You must have watched Canadian Nationals.”

“Sure, I always` do.”

“He’s won two years in a row. He’s, um. Actually, he’s pretty good? He’s favored to win.” That’s what all the commentators have been saying.

“Here?” Victor sounds surprised.

“He _is_ in first.”

“It’s okay, Victor.” JJ straightens from his last squat. “This whole romance thing is cute, but I’d be _happy_ to share what I can do without you staking me out. It’s okay to be scared.”

“I’m…what?” Victor’s hand twines in Yuuri’s.

“Oh, come on.” JJ laughs. “You said you were worried about someone earlier, and we all know it’s not Yuuri, not after _that_ Grand Prix final.”

Yuuri exhales, feeling like he’s been punched in the stomach.

JJ slaps Yuuri on the back. “It’s okay, kid.”

Yuuri is four years older than JJ. He glares at him.

JJ just laughs. “You’re in third, and that’s great! Maybe I’ll see you on the podium, huh?”

Yuuri’s teeth grit together. He reminds himself that he got through Screaming Craig, and he can get through this.

“See you at worlds, Victor. I’m gunning for your spot. After all, that’s…JJ style!” He brings his hands together in a complicated motion that Yuuri realizes, after just a little too long, is supposed to spell his nickname with his fingers. Then he laughs and jogs off down the corridor, still trying to keep warm.

The crowd roars; the fifth skater has finished, and Yuuri has to be on the ice in a handful of minutes.

What JJ said is galling because everyone knows it’s true. He’s just repeating what every commentator has said. Yuuri has never scored at JJ’s level, let alone Victor’s. Everyone knows that if there _is_ a threat to Victor, it’s from rising young skaters like JJ, not late-bloomers like Yuuri.

But Victor’s not thinking of adding another quad for _JJ._ He’s thinking of doing it for Yuuri. Yuuri sees red on a tide of jealousy.

_JJ’s not Victor’s rival; I am. I’m the one who’s going to beat Victor. I’m the one who is going to show the entire world._

“Don’t listen to him.” Victor glances over at Yuuri. “If he doesn’t see you for the threat you are, he’s an idiot.”

Yuuri wasn’t thinking of JJ in the context of himself. That’s not why he’s pissed. JJ just thinks of Victor as a person to beat. Yuuri, on the other hand…

“We’re finally in agreement,” Celestino says, coming up to Yuuri. “You can’t let things like that bother you. You’ve trained hard and you’re going to do well. You said you wanted to get on the podium, and if you skate now like you’ve been skating in practice, you’re going to do it. Never mind what any of the commentators are saying.”

They keep trying to talk him up as they make their way back to the rink. Seung Gil Lee, who had been in fourth, finishes—there’s a round of screaming and a barrage of Korean flags, so he must have done particularly well. He was, after all, one of the skaters who the commentators believed would surely pass Yuuri in the free.

“Put all that out of your mind,” Celestino is saying, “and just remember your goal. You want to make the podium, right?”

Yuuri takes off one skate guard, sets that foot on the ice, then takes off the other one. “No,” he hears himself say. His voice is shaking with anger. “I’ve changed my goals.”

“You don’t want a medal?”

Yuuri hands his skate guards to Celestino. “Oh, I’m going to be on the podium. But more than that, I want to beat JJ.”

Celestino blinks.

Yuuri glances at Victor. “I’m going to crush him so hard you’re going to need to get that fifth quad.”

Celestino’s eyes widen. “Yuuri, what are you saying?”

“No time anymore,” Yuuri says, and he skates out to the middle of the ice.

Anger, unease, and lust do what years of mental training could not—they clear his mind as he comes to a halt in the center of the rink

One hand sweeps up to touch his shoulder. The other arm turns, palm out. He should be scared; his heart should be pounding. Instead, he feels an incredible calm come over him.

He’s been underestimated the entire tournament. Those commentators talked about his third place finish after the short program as if it were a fluke, as if his making it to the Grand Prix final were a fluke, as if Victor coming here for him were a fluke. Everyone knows he’s bound to crumble under the pressure.

They’ve looking at his registered jumps. They said that he’d have to skate perfectly to keep his spot, and Yuuri Katsuki has never skated perfectly in his life.

But there’s something about being underestimated that calls to him. There are no expectations. The first notes of the music start, and Yuuri waits for his cue, before turning around and skating out.

_Watch me, Victor. Watch this._

His first jump is supposed to be a quad-double toe loop combination. He’s never quite liked the way this jump synced with the music, three harsh beats when there are only two jumps.

Well. There’s an easy way to fix that. He doesn’t let himself think about doing it—he just lays up for the jump earlier, to time it with that first crash of cymbals. Triple axel, single loop, triple flip.

He feels, rather than hears, the response of the crowd. The triple loop that should follow becomes a triple loop-triple flip combination. Layback spin, choctaw turn; he adds in an Ina Bauer, which leaves him barely enough time to get his speed up for the quad Salchow.

There’s an instant in the air—so short, less than a second, and yet so long—when a jump is perfect, when he can feel the rotations and the wind against his face, can feel that he pulls himself tight and then unfurls his limbs at just the right moment. He lands on one foot perfectly, his hands rock-steady.

There’s nothing but his skates and the lights reflecting off the ice and a distant roar. He can’t see beyond the ice and the blurred advertisements, but he looks over his shoulder to the place where he thinks Victor is.

 _I’m coming hither,_ he dares him. _I’m coming to where you are, as fast as I can._

His step sequence feels like it blisters the ice. The triple-triple combo he moved to the front half becomes his quad toe loop-double toe loop. The rest of his program goes as registered—almost. He feels each movement, precise, as if the air around him slows each second. He adds in a little hydroblading—it’s one of JJ’s signature moves, and screw that jerk if he thinks that _he’s_ Victor’s rival.

Then there’s the combination spin—he’s almost done—and what is supposed to be a triple loop.

He’s only landing his quad flip forty percent of the time, but he knows a split second before he takes off that this is one of the forty percent. The audience screams; _that_ will show them who Victor’s rival really is. Can Victor land a quad flip in the back half of his program? Ha.

Sit spin. He can almost catch sight of his own silhouette on the ice, a blur spinning fast, then slow, then fast again, then—there. It’s over.

Yuuri’s hands go in the air, rising to the ceiling, past the height of the podium he aspires to. His body aches all over.

He looks over to where Celestino stands with Victor next to him, and he imagines JJ watching him on the TV in the skater’s area in the back.

 _There,_ he thinks with a grim satisfaction. _Beat that, if you can._

_You want to take Victor’s gold? I won’t let you get it with arrogance and swagger._

_If Victor loses, it’ll be to someone who thinks of him with love and respect. Whose every step on the ice is meant as an homage to him._

_He doesn’t deserve you, and I won’t let you take him._

#

“Have you been practicing that?” Celestino says in the kiss and cry. “That was…amazing. Utterly amazing.”

Victor is silent. He just looks at Yuuri with wide, luminous eyes. He folds his arms, and when Yuuri’s score is announced, three points under the seasons’ best that Victor scored at the European Championships, he leans forward and whispers.

“I’m really going to need that fifth quad, won’t I?”

His breath is hot. His lips brush the edge of Yuuri’s ear. There’s a dangerously sexy note to it; his hand grips Yuuri’s knee just a little too firmly.

Yuuri slides forward in turn, brushing Victor’s fringe out of the way of his ear. “You’ll need it. It won’t help you.”

Victor pulls back. His lips are parted, his eyes are wide, and his pupils are dark with lust.

 _Got you,_ Yuuri thinks. _Got you good._

Yuuri knows he’s medaled by the time he leaves the Kiss and Cry—he’s in first by a wide margin, and with only two skaters left to go, he can’t get knocked off the podium.

“Yuuri,” Victor whispers. “Yuuri, that was so hot. You were so incredible.”

“And what do you want to do about it?”

Victor tries three doors before he finds one that opens. “Yuuri, come on.” He pulls him in.

It’s dark, and there are broom handles and buckets. Victor’s arms are around him, though, pulling Yuuri into an embrace, slotting him up against the wall between the cleaning supplies and kissing him like they haven’t seen each other in years. As if—Yuuri realizes with a pang—he’s getting on a flight back to Russia early tomorrow morning, as if there isn’t enough time for all the kisses they need to give each other.

Yuuri feels like a night-blooming flower, opening in the safety of blackness, giving everything that’s left of himself after the free skate over to Victor, _his_ Victor, touch by touch, taste by taste, sense by sense, until there’s nothing but the two of them in the dark, their hands on each other, bodies pressed together, lips open in one unending kiss.

Each lick is punctuated by the dull roar of the audience—Cao Bin landing a jump, or completing a particularly difficult move. Every caress, every brush of their lips, seems like a promise.

Victor is hard, but Yuuri is harder. He’s absolutely out of his mind with lust, with _Victor,_ Victor’s thigh between his legs, Victor’s hips pressing against his, Victor’s tongue and Victor’s smell and…and Victor’s hand splaying across his chest and pushing him away?

Fuck. Yuuri’s horny. He almost whines.

“There,” Victor says. “That’s got to be the applause for JJ finishing. We need to get going.”

Yuuri goes up on his toes in protest, chasing Victor’s lips.

Victor pushes Yuuri down. “Come on, they’re going to want to give you a medal really soon.”

Oh. _Reality._ Yuuri blinks and remembers.

“Which one do you think it’s going to be?”

“I guess we’ll find out.”

By the time they get back to the rink, Yuuri’s managed to will his erection to mostly unnoticeable levels. JJ’s score has been announced. Seung Gil Lee rose from fourth place to get silver. Cao Bin grabbed the bronze. And Yuuri Katsuki somehow, inexplicably, won gold.

They put the medals around their necks; they’re not that heavy, in the grand scheme of things, but…

One season’s goal down. One to go, but the one that’s left is the one that most matters. This gold is nice, but it doesn’t really mean anything.

“Congratulations,” Phichit whispers, as Yuuri slips his skateguards on after the ceremony. “Pro tip: if you don’t want everyone to know you were making out with Victor after you skated, you should definitely fix your eyeliner before the press demands close-up shots of you.”

#

There’s a bathroom in the skater’s area, one that’s relatively quiet. Yuuri’s changed out of his heavy skates into sneakers; he slips in and leans close to the mirror, close enough so that if he slips his glasses off he can still see.

Ah, yes. Smudged eyeliner on his left eye, near where Victor’s hand rested. He finds a tissue and beats it back into place.

That’s when he hears a sniffle behind him. He turns and sees one closed stall door. He just has a moment to realize that he’s not alone, when a shaky voice sounds.

“Mom?”

He knows that voice. It makes Yuuri realize something he should have noticed before: The person he vowed to beat wasn’t even on the podium.

“Mom,” that voice says, “I’m so sorry, I don’t know what happened, I just…popped my first quad Salchow and…”

…Because after all that brave talk, JJ didn’t come in second. He didn’t come in third. Instead, he popped one jump, drastically under-rotated a second, and changed one of his triple-axel combos for a plain triple axel. He came in sixth, and Yuuri doesn’t need to imagine exactly how much that must hurt.

“I don’t know what happened,” JJ is saying, “but—I just, that other guy, the one from Japan, he was just so determined, and so good, and I thought I was in the right place, I talked myself up, didn’t give myself room for doubt, and then…” Another sniffle. “I can’t believe I did that again.”

Silence, punctuated by a sniffle. Yuuri _does_ understand. He understands completely.

“You’re right,” JJ says. “You’re right. There’s still worlds. And that’s where it really counts. I’ll never give up even if the night should fall.” There’s a pause, then he laughs, a little more confident, a little more annoying. “Ha, that’s almost poetic. It sounds like a song lyric, doesn’t it?”

Yuuri’s make-up will do for now. He can’t imagine how he would feel if someone listened to his conversation with his mother—well, fine. He thinks of little Yuri Plisetsky, and amends that statement. Listened to it and understood it.

He slips out of the bathroom as quietly as he can, before JJ knows he’s there.

#

“Katsuki Yuuri,” Morooka says at the press conference, “this has been a season of ups and downs for you. We saw you take third at Skate America, second at NHK Japan, and then—”

“Please don’t mention the Grand Prix Final,” Yuuri says covering his face.

There’s good-natured laughter, as if people think he’s joking.

“And then we saw you turn over a new leaf at All Japan,” Morooka says, playing along. “I feel as if we’re seeing an all new Katsuki Yuuri here. What do you think?”

Victor is standing behind the press; Celestino is saying something to him, and he’s nodding as if he’s not really listening. His eyes are on Yuuri.

“My theme for the season,” Yuuri says, “is completion. When I announced it last fall, I knew it was a big theme, but I felt my career up until this point hadn’t told my full story. I feel that finally…” He feels himself blush. “Finally, I’m beginning to let people see what there is to me. I picked a big story to tell, and it’s taken me a little time to grow into it.”

There are nods, as if this actually makes sense.

Yuuri smiles abashedly and rubs the back of his head. “I guess you could say that I’m peaking late.”

“So,” another woman says, “is this your peak, or can we expect more from you?”

Yuuri can’t keep his gaze from straying to Victor in the back, Victor who has not taken his eyes off him.

“There’s still the World Championships,” Yuuri says. “I hope the story I’m telling will continue there.”

“So, obviously,” someone asks, “with a free skate score like that, you have to be thinking about Victor Nikiforov. Do you think you have a chance at bringing him down?”

Yuuri has never wanted to bring Victor down.

“Well.” Yuuri’s deepest desires don’t need to be shared. He hasn’t looked away from Victor, who is watching this with interest. “I like making Victor work,” he says instead.

He realizes what has come out of his mouth a moment too late, when someone giggles and someone else whispers. He blushes, red hot, and opens his mouth to correct what he said.

But Victor is still looking at him, just _looking,_ but the expression on his face is one of unalloyed delight. It _does_ something to Victor’s head that he can’t claim his sister in public.

Yuuri’s not doing that to him.

He’s _never_ doing that to him, never denying him, never denying his want, no matter how embarrassing it might seem.

“Can you…clarify what you mean by that?”

“Sure,” Yuuri says, and he knows that the red burn of his ears clarifies everything for the entire world. “I’m going to make Victor Nikiforov work very, very hard when I see him at worlds this year, and for as long as he’ll let me afterward. But I don’t think he’ll mind much.”

#

“Yuuri,” Victor breathes afterward. “Your room. Now.”

“My room,” Yuuri repeats, taking hold of Victor’s hand. “Now.”

“Yuuri,” calls another voice. “Wait.”

It’s Phichit.

Yuuri shuts his eyes, counts backward from ten, and turns around. “If someone has already made a meme of me from the press conference, I don’t want to know.”

Phichit has the grace to look uncomfortable. “Ha, um. No. Why. Why would anyone do that?”

Yuuri glares at him.

“This isn’t about that,” Phichit says. “It’s important.”

“Yuuri.” Victor almost whimpers.

“Sorry, dude.” Phichit looks at Victor. “But it’s bros before ho—” He catches Yuuri’s glare, and barely skips a beat. “Holders of world championship titles,” he amends smoothly.

Yuuri raises a dubious eyebrow, and Phichit shrugs, as if to say, hey, what did you expect on such short notice?

Yuuri sighs and lets Phichit pull him off a short distance.

“Yuuri, I need to ask you for a favor.”

Yuuri knows Phichit too well to agree without hearing more. “What is it?”

“I…um, didn’t just bring Arthur and the girls here for good luck with Four Continents. I mean, I did okay. Top ten at Four Continents is good, but…” Phichit trails off.

“What’s going on?”

“You know how worlds is in Japan this year?”

Yuuri feels a trickle of fear. Phichit is looking at him with those earnest brown eyes, and he knows _exactly_ what is about to happen. He’s in trouble. _Deep_ trouble. “Yes…?”

“And you know how Japanese customs is _really_ thorough for people coming into the country? Especially foreigners? And how Yuuri Katsuki, the returning Four Continents gold medalist, could tell them that he’s tired and bat his eyelashes prettily, and then when they speed him through without checking his carry-on, spend a month with his godchildren?”

“Phichit!” Yuuri shakes his head. “Phichit, you _know_ how I feel about breaking rules.”

“Yeah, but I know how you feel about me, too. I don’t have a powerhouse skating federation to prop me up with Grand Prix placements next year. If I don’t land in the top twelve at worlds this year, I won’t get two placements, and I won’t get to the Final no matter how well I do. I’m this close to landing my quad toe, and I _know_ I can get to the final if I work hard enough. It would mean so much for me, and for Thailand…”

Yuuri sighs. “You know Arthur’s not really good luck, right?”

“Yeah. But he makes me feel like I can do anything.”

Yuuri thinks of another excuse. “I don’t have a hamster cage or anything.”

“Um. I ordered you everything you need from Amazon Japan. It should be waiting at your place already.” Phichit looks at Yuuri and bats his eyelashes. “Please? I’ll forgive you for not telling me about Victor.”

“You already forgave me.”

“Yeah, but…” Phichit looks away. “I, it’s just. Every time we’ve talked these last couple of months, I just…got the impression…” He trails off. “It’s stupid, but your place in Sapporo seems so empty, and I know you aren’t talking about what happened with Vicchan, but I thought—never mind.” He shrugs. “Never mind, it’s okay. I’ll take them back.”

“Phichit.” Yuuri can almost hear his voice shake. “Did you bring me your hamsters so I wouldn’t be lonely?”

“Forget it.” Phichit straightens. “I didn’t know about Victor, and obviously it’s not a thing, is it?”

Obviously, Phichit loves his hamsters. Besides, his father could—and has—gotten them in anywhere. Everywhere. Even Japan.

Yuuri feels a lump in his throat.

It’s stupid, but… Phichit is right. Victor is in St. Petersburg. Yuuri misses having a roommate, and he misses his hamsters. Especially Arthur; Arthur had always come right to the door when Yuuri came to get him, and squeaked happily.

“Fine,” Yuuri says, which is as close as he’ll come to admitting that his apartment is crushingly lonely and he loves his friend to death. “Fine, I will violate Japanese import regulations for you. Get that quad toe, okay? We’re both going to be in next year’s Grand Prix Final. Got it?”

Phichit’s grin blazes back. “Got it. And now you…” He glances impishly at Victor. “You go get it, too. We’ll trade tomorrow.”

#

Yuuri and Victor are not alone in the elevator. Cao Bin is chattering with some ice dancers from China; there are three Americans present, one of whom Yuuri thinks he probably met at some point, because he asks Yuuri about Phichit and his coursework and whether he misses the United States and how “open” everyone is there.

Yuuri doesn’t remember the man’s name, and he slouches back against Victor when the guy tries to give him a congratulatory hug.

Ugh. Yuuri doesn’t hug Phichit. He doesn’t hug his _mom._ He has no idea where this guy has been or what kind of germs he has, and besides, he smells faintly of rancid milk. Americans are _so_ weird.

Victor slides a protective arm around Yuuri, and Yuuri snuggles against his side.

Finally, the elevator disgorges them on their floor. The hallway is clear; Victor turns to him.

“Yuuri,” Victor says. “Let me make it up to you. Let me make them all up.”

“I’m so gross.” Yuuri gestures to his form, and Victor frowns in puzzlement.

“I just skated, and I’ve been stuck in my gross, sweaty jacket for hours.”

“I like you sweaty. It’s not gross.”

Yuuri tries to be a little less subtle. “I need to shower. And you should shower, too.”

Victor’s gaze snaps to Yuuri’s. “Oh?”

“I have a _lot_ of cleaning up to do for you, and you still have your own room, right?”

“ _Oh.”_ Victor looks substantially enlightened. “Yes. Yes, I do.”

“So… You still have the keycard to my room?”

“Yes.”

“I’ll see you soon.”

Yuuri dawdles in his own shower in the name of thoroughness, thinking of Victor, of all the ways they’ve touched and all the ways they haven’t. His want, scarcely submerged beneath the surface, comes back in full force, so strong that it’s almost scary. He stays under the shower head until he hears Victor return. If he waits much longer, he’s going to lose his nerve, and he doesn’t want to lose his nerve. He bites his lip, turns off the water, gathers his courage and the ends of his towel, and strides out into the main room.

“You took a while in the shower.” Victor’s hair is still damp; he’s dressed in a loose button-down with jeans. His eyes dip down to the edge of Yuuri’s towel, the line of his abs.

“I wanted to clean up for you.”

Victor swallows. “Does that mean I finally get to pay you back?”

Yuuri’s hair is so wet that he can feel a cold droplet of water slide down the back of his neck. He inhales and lets go of the towel.

It’s cold, and he’s horny.

Victor’s breath hisses out. “I guess you weren’t just cleaning up in the shower.”

“I was thinking about you.” Yuuri meets Victor’s eyes. He can feel another droplet of water fall from his hair and slide down his chest, leaving a cool trail behind. “I always get like this when I think about you.”

“Oh.” The noise Victor makes is almost a whine. “Come here and let me take care of you.”

It scarcely seems real when he steps forward. This is like one of his horniest dreams come to life—Victor completely clothed on the bed, Yuuri naked and cold but impossibly hard anyway. Yuuri swipes the water off his chest with two fingers and then keeps his finger there, swirling the moisture around his nipple.

He’s a foot away from Victor, so close.

Victor slides off the bed and sinks to his knees. Fuck. This is happening. This is really happening. Victor sets his hand against Yuuri’s hip, warm and grounding, then leans in so that his nose rubs the tip of Yuuri’s dick. The touch is featherlight, but pleasure zings through him. Yuuri cants his hips forward, seeking contact.

“That’s it,” Victor coos. “Give me more.”

Another step closer; his cock slides against Victor’s cheek. Victor turns his mouth and presses a kiss to his shaft.

Yuuri’s hands clench. “I’m not going to last long.”

“Good thing I owe you,” Victor says. His tongue darts out and he licks up Yuuri’s length in one hot, wet stripe. Heat circles the head of Yuuri’s dick, then Victor swallows Yuuri whole. It’s too good, too sexy, too _much._

“Victor.” His hands close on Victor’s head. “Victor, Victor.”

Victor glances up, his eyes a flash of blue, and smiles around Yuuri’s cock. It’s the most beautiful thing that Yuuri has ever seen, the sight of Victor taking him in. Then Victor does _something_ with his tongue, something hot and heart-stopping, and he stops being able to think.

Instinct takes over. His hands clench in Victor’s hair; his hips push forward. Victor’s head bobs on him; his fingers come up and cup Yuuri’s balls.

“Fuck, you’re so hot,” Yuuri says. “You’re so good, so sexy.”

Yuuri’s had blowjobs before—ones that ranged from messy and awkward to downright erotic. This is the first time he’s had one that was straight-up joyful. Where he wanted to laugh from the pleasure, from the sheer elation of being here, of being loved like this.

Victor sucks his dick with a delight that has Yuuri losing it all too fast, his orgasm barreling down on him.

“Victor, I—right now, I’m—”

Victor glances up, winks at Yuuri, and bobs just a little lower on his cock. And it’s over. Yuuri comes. He comes so hard that he stops noticing his knees or the cold or anything except the crescendo of pleasure that travels through him. It comes in wave after wave, and when it dies down, he opens his eyes just far enough to see Victor licking come off his lips.

“That was…” Yuuri whispers. He can’t finish his sentence. It was too good for words.

“Yeah.” Victor stands up. He’s close, close enough that their bodies share warmth across the microscopic distance between them. Close enough that Yuuri scarcely has to push up to get his lips on Victor’s.

He can taste his own come there. “One,” he says.

Victor gives him a self-satisfied nod. “One.”

“Strip,” Yuuri tells him.

He’s still a while from getting his erection back, but watching Victor take off everything—those jeans that hid his perfectly crafted thighs, the button-down shirt—until he’s wearing nothing but a pair of blue boxer-briefs—has Yuuri’s interest stirring mentally, if not yet physically.

They fall onto the bed together, caught up in each other's arms. Victor is hard through those briefs; Yuuri can feel him as they kiss and press against each other.

He makes a point to press a little. To rub a little. To lean down and take one of Victor’s nipples in his mouth, to hear him gasp out loud and press upward, wanting.

Victor is so fucking hot, and Yuuri wants him. It doesn’t take long at all before he’s hard again. “Can I fuck your thighs?”

Victor nods enthusiastically, and Yuuri finds the lube.

Victor’s thighs are ridiculous—sculpted by over a decade of winning, and winning. They’re world-champion thighs, and Yuuri nestles between them.

“Yuuri. God. I want you so much.”

He moves his hips; Victor tilts himself forward, letting his dick touch Yuuri’s abs. Then he’s sliding between them, filling the slickness, the pressure, the perfection of him. “You’re so beautiful,” he tells him. “I love you so much.”

Victor chokes. “Love you too, Yuuri. Want you, want you to use me, want you to catch up to me so that I can finally have you, too.”

Victor smells good. He _sounds_ good, the _thwick_ of Yuuri’s cock sliding between his thighs, the slap of his hips meeting Victor’s ass. Yuuri can feel his dick brush Victor’s balls, can hear Victor making little delighted noises. It takes longer, with the edge of his hunger slaked from their first session. The pleasure builds slowly, ebbing and flowing like the tide, back and forth until the waves are too large to ignore, until the pressure on his cock is too much and he’s coming, coming harder, coming all over Victor.

“Fuck.” Victor punches his fist into the mattress. “Fuck, fuck. I need you so much, Yuuri. Tell me I can have you.”

Yuuri turns him around. “That was so good.”

“ _Please_ let me fuck you.”

“I’m fast.” He smiles at Victor. “But even I’m not that fast. A little patience. Don’t worry, I won’t let you down.”

Victor nods.

Yuuri reaches down and cups his face. “I mean it. I’m not letting you go down.”

“You’re killing me.”

“You look happy to die.”

Victor nods. Yuuri pulls him up to sit against the headboard and straddles him. Here, he can feel the weight of Victor’s cock against his own softness. He can lean forward and kiss him, letting the ridges of his abs trail—slowly—up and down Victor’s dick. He can hear Victor whimper with every brush, feel him clench his hands on Yuuri’s hips.

It still takes a lot of kissing, kissing until their lips are bruised, until he knows Victor’s mouth the way he knows his skating routine—intimately, perfectly.

“You’re getting hard again,” Victor whispers. “God, you’re amazing. Yuuri, please, please. I’ve paid you back now.”

Yuuri puts a condom on Victor. He lets Victor slick slick him up, prepare him slowly, until he’s hard and ready everywhere.

“Take this slow,” he says. “I’m, I’m really relaxed, but…let me.”

It’s been a long time since he’s had actual penetrative sex. A _really_ long time. But some of the lessons he learned aren’t the kind he forgets; he inhales and feels Victor’s cock at his entrance, exhales and lets him push in, just a little.

“God.” Victor’s hands clench on Yuuri’s hip. “This is so fucking hot. You’re going so slow, it’s like you’re sucking me in.”

“I’m not going at all.” Yuuri kisses Victor. “Reverse peristalsis.”

“What?”

“Uh, physiology thing. Just…let it happen. I promise it’ll be good.” He squeezes the tip of Victor’s cock in promise, and Victor moans.

From here, with Victor up against the headboard and Yuuri on top of him, he can kiss him. Can touch him all over. He can brace his arm against his shoulder and fuck himself, can lean forward and feel his cock drag against Victor’s abdomen. He can angle just like that, and feel Victor’s cock press against his prostate, sending pleasure shooting through him.

When he’s finally fully seated on him, Yuuri kisses him again.

“Yuuri,” Victor begs. “Please. Please move.”

It’s so intimate, to be holding Victor like this, clasping him so tightly. To be able to kiss him with Victor’s cock buried deep inside him. To be able to push—just like that, so perfectly, to feel it just brush his prostate in the way that brings him from aroused to _ready_ over the space of a few minutes.

“I’m dying.” Victor thrusts up—or tries to—but he can’t get the leverage, not with Yuuri on top giving him a centimeter of room. It feels good, though, so good, those tiny little thrusts dancing along the edge of his prostate, sending heavy prickles through him, little showers of pleasure. Victor’s hands are on Yuuri’s thighs. “Yuuri, I’m dying. Please. _Please.”_

“Please what?”

“ _Please_ let me fuck you all the way.” Victor is sweating, pushing up with his hips. “I can’t come this way, I need to come, I want you so badly, Yuuri, please, please…”

Yuuri finds his lips once more, grinds down on him, squeezing him hard.

“Please,” Victor begs.

“ _I_ can come this way.”

Victor actually whines.

Yuuri leans forward, licks Victor’s ear, and then whispers in it. “I may have forgotten to mention this before… But, um… I charge interest?”

Victor gasps. His pupils expand; he almost chokes. “Interest? You’re charging me _interest_ on the orgasms I owed you?”

“You tell me, Victor. Do you think you’re done paying me back, or do I get to keep using you?”

“Fuck.” Victor thrusts underneath him again, hitting Yuuri’s spot perfectly. “Fuck, fuck, I need to come so much, Yuuri, Yuuri, fuck.” He shuts his eyes. “Use me, please.”

“Then keep doing that. That thing with your hips. It’s so good, Victor.”

Victor whines.

“It’s brushing right where I need it. You’re doing me so well, Victor. You’re making me feel so good. It’s so good, you’re so perfect, you know just how to make me get off—just like that, beautiful, you’re beautiful—”

Yuuri’s third orgasm takes over him. This one is hot and centered right on his dick, a giant pulse of pleasure that expands to fill his world.

“God,” Victor says underneath him, “God, Yuuri, I can feel that, it’s so hot, it’s so fucking hot. Come all over my cock. Yeah. Yeah. I love you.”

Yuuri comes to rest. On top of Victor like this, their eyes are level. Victor is breathing hard; his hands are clasped about Yuuri’s hips.

“I need to come so much,” he begs. “Please.”

“Do you want me to fuck you?”

A pause. Victor knows it’s going to take time for Yuuri to get hard again. He can see him bite his lip, can feel his cock twitch deep inside him.

“Yes,” Victor whispers. “Yes. I want you.”

“Then let me get you ready.”

Victor moans. He moans when Yuuri rubs lube all over his hole, moans as Yuuri takes his time with his fingers, teasing the rim, over and over feeling the softness of his pucker. He opens up sweetly, perfectly for one finger.

He bites his hand when Yuuri hooks that finger inside him. “Yuuri, please, please.”

Yuuri’s not ready yet, so he makes sure that Victor’s extra slick, rubbing lube into him until he’s hot and wet, until he can’t think of anything but his cock inside him.

“Please, Yuuri,” Victor begs, and Yuuri gets on a condom.

It’s easy to slide inside of him; Yuuri does it on one long, slow exhalation. Victor relaxes underneath him, head thrown back.

“Tell me what you need, my Victor. Tell me what you need to come.”

“Just—not like that, like this?”

Victor corrects the angle that Yuuri fucks into him just a little, and now he’s whining with every thrust, arching into him, hissing. Yuuri’s never felt anything like this, nothing this hot, this sweet, this perfect.

Victor’s hand lands on his own dick, and he starts jerking himself—soft, slow notes winding up dizzyingly to long, hard pulls.

“I’m close,” he whimpers. “Finally close—oh, fuck—” His dick jerks between them; Yuuri can feel him bearing down, tensing, coming. “Yuuri, Yuuri. Fuck, Yuuri.”

Yuuri’s hard-on is still raging. He’s close, so close…

“Can I finish in you, or is it going to be too much?”

“Finish,” Victor says. “Finish in me so hard. Fill me with your come, Yuuri. I want to feel everything.”

Yuuri lets go and fucks him hard; Victor gasps, brokenly. His dick feels so good, so fucking good. His body is weary and sweaty. He keeps going, and then he’s coming one final time. He can’t even think; he feels too much, too much of everything. He feels this orgasm everywhere, from his toes to his head to his hands, crackling up his spine, arching his back as his dick unloads.

“Victor.” He’s almost sobbing. “Victor, Victor, Victor.”

“Yuuri, that was amazing. That was so amazing. I didn’t even know that could happen.”

Yuuri comes to his senses eventually. He pulls out of Victor, manages to toss the condom, and then leans over, cock still wet with his cum, and kisses his lover on the lips.

“Sweetheart.”

Victor just beams at him. “I’m going to come forever just thinking about that.”

Their noses nudge together; their bodies nestle against each other, folding up together. “Me too,” Yuuri admits.

“I can’t believe you came four times.”

“It was for your benefit.”

“Look at you, “ Victor coos, “coming selflessly four times in a row.”

Yuuri cackles. “You know what I meant.”

“Yeah?” Victor blushes all over. “You…um, remembered what I told you…about…”

“Sure,” Yuuri says, “but also, you’re really going to have to work on your stamina if you’re going to get five quads in time for worlds.”

“Oh—you.” Victor pushes Yuuri playfully, and Yuuri giggles. “By the way, your interest rates are ridiculous. That’s what, like fifty percent accrued over the course of two days? That can’t be legal. I’m going to report you to the relevant authorities.”

“Mmm.” Yuuri snuggles up to Victor. “You do that.”

Victor just beams at him. Yuuri reaches out and traces a line down Victor’s face. “I love when you look at me like that.”

“How am I looking at you?”

Yuuri smiles. He can’t help but smile. He feels like he’s radiating joy, like there’s no room for anything but happiness in his heart. “That’s your come hither look.”

Victor tilts his head. “My what?”

“I saw it at Russian Nationals,” Yuuri tells him. “In the middle of your free program? The camera caught this look on your face right as you glanced over your shoulder, and it was so sensual, so beautiful, that I thought if you ever looked at me like that I would walk barefoot to St. Petersburg to throw myself at your feet.”

Victor takes Yuuri’s hand and presses it to his lips.

“So. Um. Yeah. I’ve been calling it your come hither look.”

“Well. You got it wrong.” Victor leans forward and presses a kiss to the edge of Yuuri’s mouth.

“I did?”

Another kiss on the other side. Yuuri shuts his eyes.

“It’s not a come hither look.”

“No?”

Victor kisses the little divot in Yuuri’s chin, but pulls away when Yuuri tries to tilt his head up to find his lips.

“Not in the slightest. Don’t you know my free program at all?”

Yuuri has it practically memorized. “Victor. I’m your biggest fan. Of course I know it.”

Perhaps it’s at that moment, looking into the blue sparkle of Victor’s eyes, he _does_ know. He knows it the same way he knew Victor liked him: First, in the firing of every nerve, then with the hand that rests on Victor’s hip. He knows it in the sensitive skin of his lips, heating as Victor leans in for one more kiss. He knows it deep in his heart. He knows it now, finally, suddenly, in his mind, too.

“Of course,” Yuuri says, his heart full with his discovery. “It’s not come hither. It’s never been come hither. It’s stay hither and never leave.”

Victor just glows.

Stay hither. Never leave. It feels so good now that it hurts, because Victor _is_ leaving tomorrow, because they’ll be hither and yon, separated by seas and mountains and an entire vast continent. Stay hither. Stay hither.

Maybe that’s how Yuuri finds the courage to open his heart just a little more. “Speaking of which… This year’s world championship is in Tokyo.”

Victor’s fingers entangle with his, and how something as simple as hand-holding can feel so intimate, when they’ve just spent an hour and a half taking each other apart, Yuuri will never know.

“I like how you say that,” Victor says. “Toooh—kyooooh. Is that how it’s supposed to be pronounced?” He exaggerates the length of the last syllable a little too much.

Yuuri nods vaguely. “So, um. After. In the beginning of the off-season. Since you’ll already be in Japan… Would you want to come home with me? For a little while?”

“To, um, Hasetsu, was it?”

Yuuri nods.

“I’d love it.” Victor reaches out and brushes Yuuri’s hair back from his face. “Maybe we can talk about how we can spend more time with each other. I need this more than a couple of times a year. It’s hard without you.”

Yuuri looks in Victor’s eyes and he wants, he wants, he wants. Want gives rise to want; six months ago, all Yuuri wanted was to be on the same ice as Victor, warming up, for Victor to know his name and nod in his direction.

Now he can’t stop wanting with a desperate selfishness.

He doesn’t know how there’s room in this world for all his desire, doesn’t know how he’s managed to have so much—a gold medal and Victor and _this,_ Victor loving him in ugliness and beauty both. He wants to love Victor as well as Victor has loved him, and he wants more, and more, and more.

For the next month, he has hamsters and phone calls and the look of Victor’s eyes over Skype.

It will do for now.

“Yeah,” he says brokenly into Victor’s shoulder. “Let’s talk then. I would really like to see you as much as I can.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I did promise you fluff in the tags, did I not promise you fluff in the tags? There is fluff, we just…had to get through some stuff to get here. And we are not done with the fluff, there will be more fluff.
> 
> Special shout out to Poofiemius who almost correctly guessed that Yuuri would be flushed out of his room by hunger, only to find Victor waiting for him like a sad puppy. Substitute “over eager” for sad and that’s dead on.
> 
> Chapter 6 will be out in two weeks, on October 24th. Whew. It's been a long ride.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Yuuri comes to a realization about Victor and the treasure map.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all so much for your patience. I know I said this would be out a week before now but I am now exposed for a lying liar. Look on the bright side; there’s only one more chapter for me to lie to you about!

Yuuri wakes groggily at five the next morning.

He’s sore all over. His body aches and his muscles twinge with the memory of a good skate and better sex. The exhibition skate is today; that’s going to be fun.

He doesn’t care.

Victor is clutching him tightly, his face buried in his shoulder. His phone is making some horrendous digital noise. It takes Yuuri a moment to place it—it’s the alarm that Victor set last night, and this means that Victor needs to get up and go to the airport.

“No,” Victor mutters into Yuuri’s clavicle. “No, I don’t want to leave you.”

Yuuri doesn’t want him to leave, either. For one selfish moment, he thinks about asking Victor to just say “fuck it” and come back to Sapporo with him. They can share Yuuri’s ice time there, and Victor can send Yakov videos, and…

And…

“You need to go back,” he says, brushing Victor’s hair back so he can place a kiss on his forehead. “Makkachin will miss you.”

For one equally selfish moment, Yuuri thinks about inviting himself to St. Petersburg. It doesn’t matter to Celestino where Yuuri trains, after all.

But plane tickets are expensive, and Yuuri has an organic lab to finish, a final data review to do with his professor, and three courses to put in the bag so he can graduate. He and his family have put too much time, sweat, and sacrifice into this degree to walk away from it just because he doesn’t want to let go of Victor.

“Yeah.” Victor inhales shakily and struggles up onto his elbows. “Makkachin. That’s right. She needs me. But Yuuri, I don’t get to see you again for another _month.”_

“We made it ten weeks to get here. We can make it another four weeks to worlds.”

“I know we _can_ make it.” Victor pouts, petulant and adorable in the gloom. “I just don’t _want_ to.”

“And we’ll talk on the phone and we’ll text and we’ll go running together,” Yuuri says, “and we’ll Facetime and… Oh. I have an idea.”

Yuuri finds his glasses on the nightstand, flips the light on despite Victor’s mewl of protest, and goes to his carry-on, rummaging through it. “I know I brought it, I know I brought it… Ah, ha!” He turns back to Victor, brandishing his treasure. “I _knew_ I had it! I… Um…” He trails off, realizing that Victor is watching him with very wide eyes, biting his lip like he’s holding off laughter.

Possibly because Yuuri is waving a vibrator in the air. Oh.

This seemed like a _substantially_ better idea when he was still half asleep.

“I just got it,” he explains. “I haven’t used it yet. I told you, I had a lot to do to stay on schedule. So, um…” He holds it out tentatively. “I, um, did a lot of research? It’s supposed to be the best. It, um, it bends, and… Um, if you want, you could pretend it’s me?”

Yuuri can’t tell if Victor is blinking because he’s tired or because he thinks Yuuri is ridiculous.

“Yuuri, I have a vibrator and two dildos. I _already_ pretend they’re you.”

Yuuri’s face burns. Of course Victor doesn’t want his stupid vibrator. “That’s fine. I understand, it’s, it’s not that sexy, I don’t know what I was thinking—”

Victor jumps out of bed and snatches the toy before Yuuri can put it away. “No, I want it. I just don’t want to deprive you, if you don’t have anything?”

How, after last night, is Yuuri still embarrassed talking about sex with Victor? God. He’s a twenty-three year old man. He can totally talk about mature sex acts if he wants to.

“I, um. I would really like it if I knew you were using one I picked out?”

Ha. He can barely get the words out. He sits heavily on the bed, and feels the weight redistribute as Victor sits next to him.

Yuuri mutters into his fingers. “I was going to use the, um, bendy part? To help figure out a foolproof method for finding your prostate without, like, you know. What happened the first night. Jabbing your rectal wall and you having to tell me where it was?” He finds himself unable to make eye contact. “So, um. Thanks for putting up with that.”

Victor leans forward into his field of vision and slides a finger under his chin. “Yuuri,” he says with a dark edge to his voice. “You never _told_ me about _that.”_

“I did, it was on the list! Number four of the things I was supposed to figure out, actually, and—”

“No, you never told me your dick was an ultrasound!”

Yuuri bites his lip, taken aback. “What?”

“That’s amazing!” Victor says.

Yuuri is one hundred percent certain that Victor’s being sarcastic. He’s just not sure why.

“I’m pretty sure that _asking_ me is the best way to figure out what I like,” Victor continues, “but if your dick can magically image my internal organs and figure out where my prostate is, you need to stop working on your physiology paper about substrate utilization and start writing about the fact that your dick is magic.”

Yuuri finds himself blushing for an entirely different reason. “I can’t believe you remember what my paper is about. That’s so…” Sweet, he doesn’t say, because Victor is still going, and also because he’s pretty sure that there are a lot of sweet things about Victor, but this lengthy diatribe about Yuuri’s magic ultrasound of a dick is _possibly_ not one of them.

“After last night,” Victor says in a low, throaty tone, “I should have realized your dick was magic.”

Yuuri swallows and looks upward. “I can’t believe we’re having this conversation.”

“I can’t believe you didn’t tell me you have a magic dick.”

Yuuri finally makes himself look up; Victor winks at him, and yes, Yuuri’s blushing all over again.

“You’re the one who’s perfect,” Yuuri mutters. “Why are we talking about my dick anyway? We have to leave for the airport in fifteen minutes.”

“We? I thought your flight didn’t leave until nine tonight.”

“Pfft.” Yuuri is exhausted and sore and he wants to sleep forever. He doesn’t care. “If I come along, I can spend an extra hour with you before you have to go back. Of _course_ I’m going.”

#

They snuggle in the taxi, sleepily holding hands, trading kisses and endearments. It’s a long ride, and Yuuri can’t help but think—painfully—about the exorbitant price he’ll have to pay for his lonely ride back to Taipei and the exhibition, and how his winnings from Nationals are being slowly depleted. There’s Celestino’s coaching fees and travel costs and books about sex…

Also, apparently, he needs to give himself a sex toy budget, because he _likes_ the idea of buying Victor sex toys, and he didn’t actually need a new place to spend money.

His bank account isn’t as sad as it was right before the Grand Prix Final, but he really needs to watch every penny, especially since—

Oh. _Wait._ What is he even telling himself? He’s been watching his budget for weeks, telling himself there was no guarantee he’d get prize money at Four Continents. But what the fuck. He _won_ Four Continents. They’re definitely going to give him money.

He doesn’t even know how much it will be. He’d shyly looked up the winnings for a third place finish, biting his lip and thinking that would be amazing. He had superstitiously refused to let himself look any higher. He pulls out his phone and googles and…

The last remnants of his sleepiness vanish in a puff of relieved delight.“Holy shit.”

“Mmm?” Victor asks tiredly, snuggled up against his shoulder. “What?”

“I just won _twenty thousand dollars.”_

“Oh, yeah.” Victor shrugs. “The Euros prize purse is always a surprise to me, too. It feels like so little compared to the Grand Prix Final or Worlds. It’s barely more than one of the Grand Prix qualifying events. Sucks, right?”

Yuuri lets out a nervous giggle. “Uh…That’s…not what I was thinking.”

“No?”

“That’s more money than I’ve ever seen in one place at a time.”

Victor blinks and slowly looks over at him. “Really?”

Victor Nikiforov thinks that twenty thousand dollars isn’t that much. Yuuri can’t imagine telling Victor that one time, he had twenty-seven cents in his account and he made it stretch thirteen days.

God. It’s so embarrassing. He doesn’t want Victor to think of him as a charity case or to imagine that Yuuri wants him for his money.

Yuuri can’t tell him.

Except… No. No. He looks over at Victor, head cocked and curious. This is Victor, _his_ Victor, the best Victor, and he would never laugh at Yuuri. His first cringing impulse comes from old habit. That kind of thinking should have burned away after Victor smiled at him from a hotel hallway. Why is he still doing it? Foolishness. Idiocy…

Yuuri is the only person on the planet who can manage to feel ashamed of his shame.

Yuuri squeezes his eyes shut. He _can_ tell him. Victor told him he would love the anxious part of him. He won’t judge him for this, either.

“Victor,” Yuuri whispers, “I am broke. _So_ broke. If I hadn’t won Nationals, I wouldn’t even have had the money to come visit you in Tokyo at worlds. As it is, I’ve been counting every penny just so I can, you know. Pay my phone bill?”

Victor doesn’t take his arm from where it’s folded around Yuuri. His eyes widen, though. “Oh. I just kind of…assumed. I mean, you said your parents owned a resort.”

Yuuri thinks of his mom’s delighted email a week before he left for Taipei—about how his dad had finally managed to work around that pesky recurring problem with the drains, and now they probably wouldn’t need to be replaced for another year and a half, so that’s four hundred thousand yen they don’t have to worry about.

Yet.

With Yuuri’s Four Continents winnings, they won’t have to worry about it at all. A weight off his shoulders shouldn’t feel heavy, but he’s almost staggered by its absence. He doesn’t know how to experience this curious cessation of worry.

“Uh…” He looks over at Victor, unsure how to explain that his continued success may be the only thing standing between his parents and bankruptcy. “It’s an onsen. It’s…not exactly what you’d call a resort? It’s, um, a family-run business. My mom does all the cooking. My dad and sister do the cleaning and maintenance. There used to be six onsens in Hasetsu, but five of them have gone out of business and…” Yuuri exhales. “We’re not that far from turning into number six.”

Victor looks over at Yuuri. Now that Yuuri’s started to talk about it, it’s hard to stop.

“I mean,” Yuuri continues, almost babbling, “I’m here, in Taipei, and we’re not that far from Japan, and nobody in my family came to cheer me on? It’s not because they didn’t want to come. Usually, Mari tries to get away, but…”

He feels a pang of memory and stops.

“But she couldn’t afford it?” Victor guesses.

“Not the ticket or the hotel or the having to hire someone to do her chores while she’s gone. It’s…actually kind of scary, because if any of them got sick, really sick? There’s no margin at all.”

They’d had a second child because Yuuri should have been their margin. Ha. That hadn’t turned out at all. Instead of turning into a responsible son who learned plumbing and carpentry and hospitality like a good onsen owner’s kid, Yuuri has been an anxious mess who dreamed of being—of all the ridiculous things—a professional figure skater. His parents really got the short end of that stick.

Rather than guilting him into proper behavior like so many families would have done, they’ve loved him and supported him and cheered him on at every opportunity. Yuuri clenches his fist.

“Mari—my sister—was going to come to the Grand Prix Final in Sochi.” His voice sounds suddenly hoarse. “But Vicchan…”

“Your dog?”

“She got sick all of a sudden.” Yuuri looks in front of him, at the red tail lights of the other vehicles stretched in a pretty string, and shakes his head at this evasion. “I don’t know why I said that. It wasn’t all of a sudden. We just didn’t understand what was coming. For a couple of months before it hit, Vicchan just didn’t eat as much and she seemed kind of tired. She was nine, though. Maybe it was age? My mom made special dog dinners to tempt her, and those perked her up a little. Then one day, she collapsed and just wouldn’t get up. My parents took her to the vet. She had to be hospitalized, and it was so expensive. Mari called the day before the GPF to tell me about it. She said they only had the money to treat Vicchan or for her to come to cheer me on, and she asked if it was okay…”

Yuuri wipes his eyes, trying not to feel these same old stupid feelings. The taxi feels cold, and he can’t help but wonder if the driver is listening.

But Victor’s arm is around him, squeezing him, and Victor snuggles into him, resting his forehead against his, and somehow, Yuuri keeps going.

“I said yes, of course I said yes, treat Vicchan. I tried to hold myself together knowing that she was getting what she needed. After the short program, Mari called again. It hadn’t mattered. She was gone.”

“Oh, Yuuri. I’m so sorry.”

Yuuri gives a sharp twist of his head, as if Victor’s sympathy is water and if he twitches hard enough, he can shake it off.

“No. The part that really messes me up? The labs came back the day she died. My parents forwarded them on to me, because…physiology major, you know?”

He’d sat in his room after Mari called with the news, ignoring the open practice before the free program at the Grand Prix Final, poring over ever last arcane liver value, googling treatments and slowly, slowly understanding what his skating had cost him.

“They ran a bunch of tests, and one came back positive. Turns out, she had Addison’s disease. It’s super rare. The brain stops producing a certain kind of corticosteroids. But the kicker is that it’s really treatable if you catch it in time.” His voice catches. “It’s my fault.”

“Yuuri. You can’t possibly blame yourself.”

“Who else is there to blame? If I hadn’t gone to Detroit, if I’d stayed home, or if I’d gotten a job, we wouldn’t have had to worry. If mom hadn’t been trying to save every penny so Mari could support me in Sochi, she might have brought Vicchan to the vet at the first sign of trouble. Maybe, if I had just been a little more frugal. Eaten out a little less, spent less on my costume. It _is_ my fault that she’s gone. I don’t deserve to mourn her.”

Victor’s hands close around Yuuri’s arms. “Oh, Yuuri. No. No.”

Yuuri looks away. “Yeah.” His emotions are spilling out again, all awkward sharp edges, cutting his heart as they come unmoored from the ungentle anchor he’s lashed them to in all these months.

He’d hoped that if he ignored them long enough, they would stop hurting.

Ha.

He tries to gather them up and stuff them back in his heart, stuff them behind his eyes. He can feel his tears welling up. Talking about her, _thinking_ about Vicchan, brings to mind her bright little eyes and the wag of her tail and the way she would wait until Yuuri was getting in bed before jumping on top of him and licking his face. It hurts.

It all hurts, deeper than the ache of his muscles from yesterday’s program, more than the after-effects of last night’s sex marathon with Victor. It hurts so much he can’t possibly let himself feel it, not now, not like this.

But he can’t stop anymore. He catches a stupid sob before it slips out.

“You know,” Victor says softly, “if you feel like you don’t deserve to mourn her, you could always do it now, around me?” Victor sounds uncertain, and he so rarely sounds uncertain. “I’m so bad at comforting people it’ll be like you aren’t mourning her at all!”

Yuuri looks over at Victor through his tears. Victor gives him a soft smile, and Yuuri thinks about how much he would have loved being able to post new Vicchan pictures in their shared dog folder, and that—perhaps more than anything else—breaks the walls he’s been trying to maintain in his heart, because Victor, Victor would have loved to meet his namesake.

“Shit,” he says, and he stops pretending that he isn’t crying. He doesn’t have any more words, just emotions, and he can’t keep hold of them. He can’t even try. He didn’t bring tissues, and he’s a disgusting mess.

He’s not sure how long the crying bout lasts. Just that the gray around them is slightly less gray when he’s finished, that the other cars have turned into dark metallic blobs, not just tail lights. Victor’s arms are still around him, and he’s talking utter nonsense.

“Right?” he’s crooning. “Um, so, um, Johnny Weir’s 2010 short program. I liked his costume for it, very sexy. Then the start, it’s so good, this choreographic sequence, going into a triple-double combo—”

“Victor,” Yuuri says in confusion, “are you narrating old skating programs from memory?”

“Um. Yes?” Victor gives him a wary smile.

“Why?”

“Makkachin is afraid of thunderstorms. Her puppy psychologist told me to put on her anxiety vest and to talk to her in a calm, low voice when she’s freaking out? He said it didn’t matter what I said, as long as I was talking. This is what I normally do for her. I figured it was…worth a try.”

Yuuri looks over at the man he loves. Yuuri’s eyes are probably red and swollen, but he can’t help but snort. “Okay, but I’m…not a dog? I understand what you’re saying?”

“Did it help?”

“…Yes.” Yuuri is glad he doesn’t have a mirror. He knows he’s an ugly crier. Just as he thinks that, he hiccups, because getting the hiccups from his sobfest is just what he needed. “Sorry.” Yuuri gives Victor a watery smile. “I’m not sure where all that came from. I’m a mess”

Victor’s arms are still around him. He doesn’t let go. “It’s okay. You didn’t shut me outside this time, and that’s all I want. Shut me _in_ with you, not out.”

Yuuri burrows into Victor’s arms. “I can do that. I’m sorry I’m such a mess.”

“I’m not exactly a non-mess.”

“Ha.”

There’s another pause. Yuuri can feel every last jostle in the road.

“When I got mad when I was younger,” Victor says into Yuuri’s hair, “or sad, or afraid, Yakov would just say to put it into my skating and let it go. So I did. I did it again and again, until I’d put all of myself on the ice and had nothing left inside me.”

Yuuri twists a little so he can clasp his palm against Victor’s.

“Things got…bad for a while. Bad enough that when I told Yakov I wanted a week off to come here, he grunted and said I could have six days.”

“That seems so incredible. Isn’t he strict?”

“Strict enough that he yelled at me all season. I haven’t come close to the records I set three years ago, you know, and even though everyone kept talking about me, I just…wasn’t as good. I didn’t come close until Euros. Yakov said then he could see you in my skating.”

“Oh.” Yuuri can’t breathe. It’s impossible.

“He was wrong,” Victor said. “I didn’t tell him, because he wasn’t giving me shit about coming here. I’m not putting you on the ice. My skating has taken everything else; it doesn’t get you. I’m keeping you for myself.”

“Yes.” Yuuri tilts his head. “I’m yours.”

Such as he is.

Their mouths join. He’s not sure if the sun actually chooses that moment to tip over the horizon in a dazzle of gold and pink, or if this is just what it’s like to be loved by Victor—flooded in light, in caring, until even his grief feels loved.

Until these last few days, he never knew what it was to be loved like this. He wants to give the same kind of love back to Victor with a fierceness that he can’t possibly express—to love Victor as well as Victor has loved him, with as much devotion. He wants to give, and give, and give, because he’s been given so much in return.

That’s how he gathers up the courage to speak.

“Victor, about the treasure map…”

“Mmm?”

“I don’t want you to think I have expectations or requirements. I just want…” He looks over into Victor’s eyes. “You. So much you. Can’t we just…forget about it?”

A soft, sweet smile breaks over Victor’s face. “Oh, Yuuri.” He cups Yuuri’s cheek. “It’s a lovely idea, but no. You were right, back in Sochi. We wouldn’t work at all without the treasure map.”

“But—”

“I’m getting closer every day.” Victor’s eyes lid, half-shutting. “I’ll tell you all about it when I arrive.”

Yuuri bites his lip, tries to think of how to protest, but they’ve reached their destination.

The car stops; Victor pays and grabs his luggage. Yuuri stays with him as long as he can—long enough for them to grab a quick breakfast, long enough for Victor to clutch his arm and point wildly in the direction of a woman who is pulling a Bichon Frise from a shoulder bag.

“Do you know how to say ‘that’s a cute dog’ in Chinese?” Victor demands.

“No,” Yuuri says, and he finally breaks on the language question, “and it’s probably Mandarin that she speaks, Mandarin is what the language is called, but there are a number of other languages in the Chinese language family.”

Victor ignores this and looks at Yuuri in something like betrayal. “How can you know how to order at a restaurant but not know how to praise dogs? That’s a far more important survival phrase!”

“How can _you_ not know it, then?”

Victor seems struck by this. He nods ferociously. “Good point. Clearly I need to plan better.”

“Speaking of plans. How long do you think you can stay after worlds? I need to, um. Make plans?”

Victor considers. “Two weeks? But…” He trails off, and looks shyly at Yuuri. “I have some ideas. If we wait for the next skating match to bring us together again, I won’t see you for forever. Do you have to make permanent plans for next season before we can spend some time together again?”

“No.” Yuuri holds Victor’s hand, running his thumb along the palm. “I can wait.” Then he laughs. “Oh my god, I just realized I may even be able to afford to visit you over the summer once I win at worlds.”

Victor gives him a carefully amused look. “Second place payout isn’t bad, I hear.”

“You _hear?”_

An arrogant shrug. “It’s been a long time since I came in second in anything. I wouldn’t actually know.”

“You came fourth last night.”

Victor bites his lip and flushes a brilliant and fascinating red. But before he can reply, the intercom announces that his flight is boarding.

An Aeroflot employee had assured Victor that she would personally usher him through the shortest security line, but there’s still no time to spare.

Victor stands. Their mouths find each other, clinging.

“I love you,” Yuuri says.

“Love you, too.”

Another kiss, this one a little more desperate.

“I have to go,” Victor says. “I hate going.”

“I’ll see you soon.”

“It’s going to be _forever.”_

“Four weeks.”

“Like I said,” Victor says desperately. “Forever.”

One final kiss, lips touching too briefly, mouths tasting desperately, temporarily.

“Okay.” Victor pulls away. He takes one step. Yuuri realizes that he has to let go of Victor’s hand— _has_ to, and yet, for a second he simply can’t.

Victor’s eyes meet his, and Yuuri forces his fingers to loosen their grip.

“Love you,” Victor says. Then he’s walking away.

#

On the return trip, he thinks about love, and what it feels like to have it, and how he wants Victor to feel the way Yuuri does—loved so deeply that he has to believe it, no matter what else is happening. Yuuri loves Victor; in some ways, he has loved him since the moment he first saw him on a grainy TV screen.

In other ways, his love feels new and fragile. After this last weekend, his love has a ferocity to it. It’s Victor, _his_ Victor. Yuuri wants to love him so hard that there’s no room for anything else. He doesn’t want there to be an ounce of room for Victor’s doubt. He wants to love him better than anyone in the entire world could love any human being.

He doesn’t know if he’s up to the task.

His phone dings forty-five minutes into the return trip. The sun is overhead; Victor is in the air.

_Yuuri, now is a good time to delete the internet. Just letting you know._

If _Phichit_ thinks it’s bad… _What’s going on?_

_Nothing you haven’t heard before. Uh. I mean that literally. You’ve literally heard it before._

Yuuri opens Twitter to an onslaught of notifications. He hates Twitter. It’s weirdly nonlinear and nothing makes sense.

_Tag yourself, I’m the blush on @vnikiforov’s face when @katsukiyuuri tells him he came fourth._

_I’m the conversation about dogs._

_Okay, but can we talk about the “I love you” parts? Has Victor the playboy died, never to return?_

Yuuri reads on in confusion. People are talking about things that he said. He recognizes lines from his airport conversation with Victor. They know what he ate, how many times he and Victor kissed… Yuuri checks, but luckily, nobody seems to know anything about his breakdown in the taxi over Vicchan.

_Phichit, what is going on?_

It takes Phichit a moment to explain. Some enterprising fan apparently cross-referenced every flight combination between Taipei and St. Petersburg, along with Victor’s expressed airline preferences, and managed to guess when they’d be at the airport. That same fan sat at the table next to them, walked near them while they said goodbye, and surreptitiously caught their entire conversation at the airport on their cell phone camera.

Unbelievable.

And yet… Victor had told him that things got bad with the press and his sister and her children. Yuuri _knows_ how popular Victor is. He can imagine Victor finding out, apologizing, asking Yuuri if he minds…

And no, no. Yuuri’s not going to let Victor doubt. He’s not going to make Victor wonder if he’ll have to stop touching Yuuri in public, if he’ll have to pretend for him, too.

The ferocity he’s been nurturing the whole ride rises up in him. Yuuri’s chin snaps up in the back of the taxi. He vowed to love Victor as well, and as fiercely, as Victor loves him. If this is the territory that comes with being Victor’s, then he won’t shy from it. It might be embarrassing, it might be annoying, but this is what it is to be with Victor, and Yuuri will love this part of him, too.

He takes a deep breath and considers how to go on. He’s naturally private. Except… It turns out he doesn’t hate the idea of everyone knowing that Victor is his.

He can do this. He can.

His face burns red, but there’s nobody but the driver to see his intense embarrassment.

He goes back to the first tweet he saw.

_Tag yourself, I’m the blush on @vnikiforov’s face when @katsukiyuuri tells him he came fourth._

Slowly, Yuuri presses the quote tweet button and thanks Phichit silently for his social media training.

 _I’m the one who came first, second, third, and fifth,_ he writes. Before he has a chance to chicken out, he hits post.

He’s never going to love the internet. He’s not going to use social media like Phichit. But he refuses to shy away from any part of Victor—not the hard parts, or the annoying parts, or the part where everyone thinks they have a right to know everything about him.

Until this weekend, he didn’t know how _much_ he could be loved. Now that he understands, he wants to give love back, over and over, to the man who showed him in the first place. This is a start.

He thinks back to what Victor said about the treasure map—that they wouldn’t work at all without it—and he nods in determination. Maybe, maybe if he loves Victor hard enough, Victor will realize he doesn’t need to try anymore, that Yuuri will love him no matter what, and that he can give up the treasure map for good.

#

Victor’s flight is long enough that Yuuri has time to skate at the exhibition, watch in horror as Phichit drugs his hamsters into silence for the trip to Japan, return to Sapporo, sleep, go to class, and head to the rink before he gets one exhausted text: _have Makkachin, will be home soon, miss you forever._

 _Miss you too,_ Yuuri texts.

It comes a few moments later: _Yuuri, holy hell, what did you do to Twitter? I’m dying over here. I don’t think I’ve laughed so hard in ages._

 _Don’t die,_ Yuuri texts, _or I’ll never be able to beat you at worlds._

_Sneaky Yuuri. I like it._

#

“It’s still not right.”

Yuuri and Victor are on the phone again the next day, watching each other's practice sessions.

“In your defense,” Yuuri says dryly, “you did just get off a twenty-hour plane flight.” He’s never seen Victor biff a quad Lutz as badly as he had today; he has to be aching.

Victor doesn’t even rub the spot. “No, that’s not what I mean. The choreography is still wrong. I’ve been refining it and refining it all season, and it’s _still_ not exactly right. Gah. What am I doing wrong?”

It’s a rhetorical question. Yuuri knows that; it’s not like the feeble insights he’s offered in their skate-chat sessions have had any real value. Still, he steeples his fingers and thinks.

 _Stay close to me and never leave._ The first time he saw Victor’s routine, he thought it was all questions—who and why and how and when. There had been a poignancy to it because of that, the uncertainty juxtaposed with the romanticism.

He understood those questions well enough. He’d set Victor up as the goal he would chase for half his life.

Catching Victor, _his_ Victor, has changed all that. Up until a few days ago, Yuuri thought he knew what devotion was like. He thought it was hour after endless hour on the ice. He thought it was kneeling before Victor’s posters in the room he’d made a virtual shrine to his idol, making promises he never quite managed to keep—that he would see him soon.

He would never have been able to conceive of a devotion like the one he received.

“Your theme is questions, right?”

Victor nods.

“Well, um. This may sound a little egotistical, but don’t you think your questions have changed a little since you choreographed the routine? Especially for the free.” He feels himself blushing. It’s arrogant to think that Victor wants Yuuri to stay by his side, but…

“Hmm.” Victor taps his finger against his lips. “They have.”

“I mean, when I think of your performance at the Rostelecom Cup, for instance.” Yuuri leans back against his pillow. “It made me think that you were asking—is it worth it? Why am I here? Does anyone know where to find me?”

“Yes,” Victor breathes. His eyes find Yuuri’s through their FaceTime connection.

“And—um. I don’t think you’re asking that anymore. Because now you know I’ll meet you wherever you are and love you whatever you do.”

Gah. He hadn’t meant to sound so stupidly flowery, but Victor glows in response. Yuuri has no desire to take those words back, not when they make his beloved look so incandescently happy.

“So I think you need to know—what questions are you still asking? Because these questions are what you need to skate.”

Victor looks up at him, his eyes spearing Yuuri momentarily with an intensity that he can’t believe he has evoked. It’s like Victor knows the answer—or rather, he knows the _question._

He doesn’t ask, and Yuuri doesn’t ask him what he’s thinking. Whatever it is, it’s too big for them, too big for two young men who will retire from their professions in a matter of years, too big for two people who have spent a few days with each other in person and who have only been talking for a couple of months.

_Stay by my side and never leave._

It’s too much for Yuuri, the shocking blue of Victor’s eyes, as if he’s just discovered something on the horizon.

Yuuri swallows hard.

“My Yuuri.” Victor glows. “My most wonderful Yuuri. How did I ever get so lucky as to have you?”

This has been Yuuri’s question about Victor ever since he woke up in his hotel room a few months ago.

After they hang up, his mind won’t quiet down, offering up that image of Victor, looking Yuuri dead in the eyes from thousands of kilometers away, reflecting a question that they both know it’s too soon to discuss.

Yuuri hasn’t done anything to deserve the depths and layers of Victor’s affection, and that makes them feel all the more precious—that he has been casually given a gift of immense value for no particular reason. All he can do is try to return Victor’s love, to hide the fact that everything he knows about love, he learned from Victor.

After half an hour of trying to sleep, he gives up and jogs down to the rink. It took him three weeks to get an extra set of keys, and it only took that long because the janitor was apparently too impressed by his stature as a skater to dare come up to him and start a conversation. Yuuri laces up his skates and pushes out onto the ice.

Figure eight. Paragraph loop. Three loop. He shifts onto the outside edge of the skate and watches the perfect curving edge his skate leaves in the ice.

He’s not quite sure what question Victor thought to himself. He only knows what comes to his own mind. _Will you stay with me? Will you love me forever?_ In his mind’s eye, he sees a bright golden glitter on Victor’s hand, and his breath catches on the question it is absolutely too soon to ask: _Will you marry me?_

These are stupid questions. Neither he nor Victor are idiots, and you don’t ask these things, not now, no matter how you feel.

The only thing he knows is that he’s been trying to give Victor the answer this entire time.

Yuuri’s theme for the season is completion, and what is completion but an answer? His answer to Victor is yes. Of course it’s a yes. It’s yes to everything.

He slides into his step sequence from the free program, stronger and more powerful than before, and launches into the quad loop a split second before he realizes that he promised Celestino he wouldn’t practice it at night with nobody around.

He pops the loop, wobbling on the landing anyway, and slides back into a compulsory figure.

Yuuri has spent all this time trying desperately to catch Victor. What better way to say _yes_ to the question that Victor is asking than to ratify a jump that nobody has landed yet? To show Victor that he loves him, that he’ll never stop reaching for him? He can dedicate his skate to him and tell him everything without once using the words that are so embarrassing.

Yuuri comes to a halt on the ice, but for some reason his position feels like a start, not a stop. He realizes, a second later, that it’s because he’s unconsciously adopted the starting pose to Victor’s _Stay Close to Me._

A second realization hits: He knows what’s wrong with Victor’s choreography. It’s not that Victor’s _asking_ himself the wrong questions; it’s that Victor has never been in a position to _answer_ the questions his routine raises.

In that one moment, Yuuri can see himself on the rink at worlds, in the only place he can do what he needs to do—to exceed Victor, to show him what what he needs to say.

It’s easy to take Victor’s beginning pose, those first few steps. It’s easy to turn the routine from the questions Victor has into what Victor really, really wants it to be—a promise.

Yuuri wants to give Victor everything—the quad loop, his heart, his body, his soul. _Yes,_ he wants to say. _Yes to everything._ Since Victor can’t ask out loud, and Yuuri can’t answer with words, he’ll have to do it this way.

All Yuuri has to do is land a jump nobody else has ever landed in competition, take first place, and end up in the exhibition for worlds. If he can just manage that, he’ll know he’s worthy of the man he’s yearned for all these years.

#

Yuuri comes home a few nights later to find a package propped against his door. At first, he’s afraid it’s more hamster gear from Phichit, who has gone completely overboard. (Worse—Phichit doesn’t want them to forget his smell, so he’s promised to send a gross sweaty shirt every week, and Yuuri is still not sure how he got talked into this.) No matter how many times Yuuri reminds his former rinkmate that his space is small and there is no room for another hamster maze, he _will_ keep sending things.

But the return address is just listed as “shipping department.” Huh. Yuuri didn’t order anything.

He opens his door and sets the package on his desk. The hamsters squeak and distract him, and he takes a moment to take them out of their cage and say hello. Arthur nibbles his thumb happily, and Yuuri distributes lettuce all around.

There’s something immensely satisfying about feeding someone, even if the someone in question can only show gratitude by squeaks.

He remembers the package fifteen minutes later. He opens it up dubiously; inside, wrapped in pink tissue paper, he finds a vibrating dildo and a little gift note.

_This one’s my favorite. Call me? xoxo —B_

Yuuri feels a sudden thrum of desire. He doesn’t call—it’s the middle of the day for Victor—but he sends a text.

_Got your present. Excited to try it. Let me know me when you’re free?_

_Ahhh. Out running errands with Makka—we both needed it, will be home very soon, can’t wait!_

His phone rings half an hour later. When he answers, Victor is holding his phone in an off hand, letting it swing without focusing on his face. It looks like he literally just got home—he’s still hanging up Makkachin’s leash, and he takes a bag that looks like it has bread and maybe some other things in it and sets it on a high counter.

“Hi, Yuuri!” Victor turns the screen to his face. “How was your day?”

Yuuri lets out a little sigh of appreciation. God, Victor is so beautiful. His face is flushed with the cold and his eyes are so blue it almost hurts Yuuri’s soul. He focuses on Yuuri like he’s the only thing in the world. It’s _ridiculous_ that he’s Yuuri’s. Ridiculous and perfect.

“Good,” Yuuri sighs, melting into a puddle. “So good.”

It’s not even been a week since he saw Victor, and he misses him so intensely that his whole body lights up at the sight of him, pleasure and lust mixing in an almost Pavlovian response. Victor doesn’t seem to notice Yuuri staring at him; he sets his phone down and puts his things away.

Yuuri, who is used to Phichit tossing his belongings everywhere the instant he comes home, smiles. “You’re almost as neat as I am.”

“I wasn’t, not until I got Makka. But if I leave bread on the counter, Makkachin will eat it.”

“Oh.” Yuuri blinks. “I’m so used to Vicchan. She could never reach that high. I…didn’t think.”

There’s a moment. Saying her name plucks at Yuuri’s emotions. It’s just a pinch of hurt, the reminder that Vicchan isn’t there to beg food at Yuuri’s chair any longer. The two of them just look at each other—Victor waiting to see if Yuuri wants to talk about it.

Yuuri goes and finds Arthur instead, taking him from his cage and cradling him in his hands, letting him run from arm to arm across his interlaced fingers.

“I’m okay,” Yuuri says. “It helps to not be alone.”

Victor doesn’t push, and Victor loves him for that, too. He’s never been a talker—somehow, talking too much feels like repeatedly ripping the scab off his wounds, just so people can see that they exist.

He’s sure that talking helps _some_ people. He’s just not one of them.

But there’s a deep satisfaction in _presence._ In having Arthur here, warm and furry, in having Victor watch him with those perfect eyes, knowing that they care.

Now that Victor knows, not talking is comforting in its own way.

Victor breaks the silence first. “I miss you already.”

“Miss you, too.” Yuuri ducks his head. “I landed my quad loop four out of five times at practice today.”

“Shit.” Victor swallows; he runs a finger down his throat. “I did one out of three. It was just not there for me today.”

“You did two out of three yesterday,” Yuuri reminds him, “and I was zero for six. Everyone’s allowed an off day.”

“Not me,” Victor says with a tight, practiced smile. “I’m Russia’s hero, don’t you know?”

Yuuri does know, because he knows everything about Victor. Before he knew him, though, his world seemed fuzzy and indistinct and fairy-tale like. Now, now that Yuuri stands close to Victor’s heart, he can see all the lethal sharp edges of that reality. Now, they cut him, too.

It hurts him in a strange, inexplicable way to know that Victor thinks that a relatively bad day in practice (and by “bad day,” Victor means “can only land jump not yet ratified in competition one third of the time”) is not allowed.

“Well,” Victor says, looking off to the side, “Russia’s hero will work harder tomorrow.”

 _I want to love him as much as he’s loved me,_ Yuuri thinks, and the thought is almost savage.

“Hey.” Yuuri can almost hear the reflected pain in his voice. “I know you’re a lot of things to a lot of people, but you’re not Russia’s hero to me. You’re my Victor, and you don’t have to pretend.”

The thing Yuuri has discovered about Victor is that he is a blusher. He would never have thought it before he knew him, possibly because Victor before now was still coming to terms with the fact that he had emotions. Victor _now,_ when he’s pleased… He blushes. He turns bright pink at this, and his smile is so perfect, so involuntary, that Yuuri can’t help smile back at him. He sets Arthur back in his cage and locks the door.

“I forgot.” Victor runs a hand through his hair. “I forgot. You know what they call the generation of skaters between me and Vasya?”

“No.”

“The lost generation.” Victor taps his lips. “Because the entire machinery of the Soviet sports regime collapsed. Yakov went from a respected coach to nobody—no salary, no students, no rink. It happened almost overnight. We had to rebuild the skating program, you know.”

“We?”

“Me and Yakov.” Victor sighs. “But I’m the face of it, and I’m not allowed to forget.”

Yuuri wants to reach through FaceTime and hug him.

“It’s hard enough just trying to win,” Yuuri says instead tentatively. “You don’t have to carry the weight of your country’s entire skating program on your shoulders.”

“Who else will do it?”

Yuuri doesn’t say anything. Victor knows all his responses anyway. He knows he can’t do it forever, no matter what his fans want. He knows.

“You’re right,” Victor says, in response to the thing Yuuri hasn’t said. “I know. And I don’t want that to be the legacy I leave for Yuri and Mila. They should be able to skate with joy, you know?”

“Victor, you can’t carry their burdens, too.”

Victor gives him a sad smile, and Yuuri melts, because he knows that Victor will try, even if he doesn’t have to.

“You wouldn’t be the Victor I love if you stopped caring,” Yuuri says. “So…” He doesn’t know how to love Victor as much as Victor has loved him, but he wants to know. He wants to _try_. “So how can I help you?”

“Just be yourself,” Victor whispers, and Yuuri melts, because even now, Victor loves him that much. “Be yourself and stay hither, okay? Stay hither and never leave.”

“I’m not leaving,” Yuuri promises. _Forever,_ he doesn’t say aloud.

Victor’s smile shifts. “About that present I sent…”

“Yeah?” Yuuri’s voice catches. “What about it?” Yuuri doesn’t glance over at the dildo, sitting close on the table, but he feels a surge of interest course through him.

Victor smiles at him. “Want to go over skating footage?”

Oh. Damn. Yuuri swallows his sense of whiplash. “Really? I mean.” He swallows. “Sure, right. Of course.”

“Just kidding!” Victor sings.

Oh, thank god.

“We can do that later. But for now… Can I tell you how much I miss you?”

“Is it as much as I miss you?”

“In twenty-two days, twelve hours, and thirty-six minutes, I’m going to be able to kiss you again.” Victor looks at him hungrily through the tiny phone screen.

“No, you won’t, not if I kiss you first,” Yuuri says solemnly.

“I’m going to push you up against the nearest wall and I’m going to fuck you so hard.”

Yuuri can’t help but giggle at this mental image. “You’re probably going to need to add a couple hours to your time estimate.”

“What? Why?”

“That’s the time until you land in Narita. So unless you want to get it on in a public airport…”

Victor’s eyes darken and fix on Yuuri, and…

Oh. _Oh._ Yuuri swallows and he goes with it.

“On the escalator,” Yuuri says, “down to the baggage claim. I’m standing on the step above you, which means I’m going to be taller than you for once. I can wrap my arms around you and kiss you.”

“Just before the escalator ends,” Victor says, “I pick you up, and you wrap your legs around me. You’re my favorite luggage, and I carry you to the edge of the room. I brace you against the wall, and thrust up into—”

“Wait, what happened to my pants?”

“Fuck pants.”

“No, this is important,” Yuuri says, even though it isn’t, because if they can fantasize about publicly fucking in the airport, then Yuuri can have magic disappearing pants to cover his magic ultrasound dick. “I need to know. Did I meet you at the airport naked? That sounds cold.”

“Kilt?” Victor suggests.

Yuuri gives Victor a disdainful look.

“Tear-away pants?” Victor tries again.

“Okay, time this.” Yuuri unbuttons his jeans and shimmies out of them, underwear and all, as fast as he can. He’s hard already, and by the time he manages to shuck his shirt off, his heart is thumping in his chest.

“Twelve seconds,” Victor says approvingly. “You took your pants off on the escalator, then.”

“But if you’re—” No, he doesn’t need to know who’s carrying his pants if Victor has his arms full of Yuuri. Come on, Yuuri’s brain. What the hell. “Nevermind. Sure.”

“And that means I can brace you against the wall of the baggage claim and unzip my pants. You’re already prepared for me.”

“I’m lubed up.” Yuuri’s reaching for the lube as he speaks, applying it liberally to the toy Victor sent him, and then sliding his forefinger inside himself in preparation. The touch feels so good against his rim. He imagines it’s Victor, that he’s up against a wall and Victor’s cock is hot against his hole, pressing in… “Fuck.”

“I want you.” Victor’s eyes shiver shut. “You’re so good, Yuuri. So perfect. I love the way you swallow me up. God, I want you so much, _so_ much…”

“Watch me,” Yuuri tells him, fitting the vibrator to his hole. “Watch me, fuck me, take me. Let everyone know that I’m yours.”

“Yeah. They’ll know I want you so much I can’t, I don’t want to wait. I’m going to fuck you so hard.”

It’s easier now that Yuuri doesn’t feel the need to try and describe everything, now that he knows what they’re like together in person.

“Feels so good,” he says, exhaling and letting the toy slide deep inside, watching Victor struggle out of his clothing. “You feel so good, Victor.”

“Jesus, Yuuri.” Victor is beautiful, muscle and pale skin and silver hair.

“Tell me what to do,” he says, and Victor tells him when to turn the vibration on, tells him how to angle it, tells him how much he wants that to be him, his cock deep inside of Yuuri. He watches Victor stroke himself with long, perfect pulls.

“I love you,” Yuuri says, as he feels his orgasm approaching, want and desire tangling into something that he can feel deep in his heart. “I want to love you as much as you love me.”

“You do,” Victor says. “You do.”

Yuuri comes to the sound of this lie, his pleasure ripping through him with just a touch of guilt, because Yuuri may love Victor with everything he has, but Victor has more. Nobody loves as well as Victor.

In that moment afterward, when the vibrator is too much against his overstimulated prostate, when his semen is still warm on his stomach, Yuuri wants as hard as he’s ever wanted. Victor, sweet Victor, unselfish Victor who has given himself to the ice and his country and Yuuri and _everyone._ Yuuri wants to be able to love Victor as well as Victor has loved him with an almost ferocious desperation.

He’ll make it there, he promises himself. He’s pouring more hours than he has into it—into his quad loop, into the new exhibition skate. He just has to practice harder, and he’ll make it.

“I miss you,” Yuuri says instead.

Victor looks wrecked on his phone screen.

It’s better in person. Better when he can run his hand down Victor’s cheek and feel the faint moisture of his sweat; better when he can kiss his lips again and again, until Victor’s breath slows. It’s better when they can lie together, skin to skin, never letting go.

It’s better when Victor can kiss away his doubts, can make Yuuri forget that Victor is one step ahead of him in all things—in love and in skating.

Yuuri has spent all his life yearning to catch up to Victor. This is not a new feeling. He smiles at Victor and vows to get better.

Victor just smiles back. “I miss you, too.” He sighs, then, and looks up at the ceiling. “Jump footage now? You’re never going to catch up to me if we don’t.”

#

“I talked to someone,” Victor says a few nights later.

“Someone?”

Victor is uncharacteristically quiet for a moment, looking down at his hands. “Yeah. _Someone._ I just, I was thinking about the thing you told me in Taipei. That Celestino had you talk to someone, and I thought… Maybe. Maybe I should try it?”

“Oh.” _That_ kind of someone. Yuuri sits up. “How did it go?”

“I… Um, I didn’t want to talk to anyone in Russia. They have some weird ideas about me there, and I thought I should feel comfortable, right? So I looked up a sports psychologist online and found someone who lives in the UK, who has worked with high-level athletes before.”

“Okay.” Yuuri nods. “That sounds good. How were they?”

“I mean, we just had one session.” Victor looks away. “But… I told her what was going on with me as much as I could in an hour? And she told me that…” His voice breaks slightly. “That it’s actually really common? That top athletes feel a lot of pressure, and tend to compartmentalize their feelings? And that the things that make me a top athlete sometimes…correlate with other things, mental health issues?”

“Oh,” Yuuri says.

Victor smiles. His eyes glitter brilliantly—not tears of sadness, but the hint of something else. “It’s not just me,” he tells Yuuri. “It’s not just me, other people have been through this, and they’ve been able to feel things again afterward?”

“Oh, Victor. Of _course_ they have. Of course you will.”

“It’s just a lot,” Victor says. “I thought maybe, I traded all of myself for my gold medals. That maybe it was permanent. It’s a lot to hear that it…isn’t. That there are things I can do.”

“Yeah,” Yuuri says, smiling, his heart lifting. “Yeah, there are. I’m here for you the whole way.”

#

“I have an idea,” Yuuri tells Victor over the phone a few nights later, after they’ve compared quad loop footage again. Yuuri’s not good enough there, not good enough anywhere, and he needs to get better.

“Mmm?”

“So…” His idea sounded fine in Yuuri’s head. Now that he’s going to say it out loud… “So, I have anxiety? And I keep thinking that some day you are going to find out everything embarrassing about me, and you’ll wash your hands of me and say good riddance.”

“Never going to happen,” Victor says passionately.

“So I figured… You wanted me to, um, not shut you out? So maybe it would help if I told you everything embarrassing about me as a preemptive matter.”

“That’s….” Victor trails off, biting his lip. “You think it will help?”

Yuuri nods.

“Okay, sure.” Yuuri can tell that Victor is trying very hard to be serious.

“I made a list,” Yuuri says.

“Another list?”

“Lists are great.” Yuuri ignores the hint of humor that keeps creeping into Victor’s voice. “Can we just…start? Take it slow? Go through these one by one?”

“Of course, Yuuri. If you think it will help.”

Yuuri takes a deep breath and bulls forward. “Number one: I have forty-six posters of you on my wall. Thirty-two of them are in my childhood room in Hasetsu which I haven’t visited in years, and fourteen of them are in my training room in Detroit. I…um, had to rebuy some of my favorites, and one was out of print? I paid fifty dollars for it on eBay.” Silence stretches. “Did I mention how broke I am?”

“Yuuuuuuri!” Victor stretches out his name. “I get _royalties_ on those posters. Why would you think this would bother me? I owe you dinner!”

“Oh.” Yuuri smiles haplessly.

“We should get a poster of us,” Victor says.

“Of _us?_ Who would want that? I thought everyone on Twitter thinks I don’t deserve you.”

“Um. Have you been on Twitter since you tagged yourself?”

“No, ugh. Talk about embarrassing things.”

“Okay, then.” Victor laughs. “Just take my word for it. We should do a joint photo shoot after worlds. If we do it through my production company, I’ll split my profit sharing deal fifty-fifty with you.”

“People would buy that?”

Victor actually giggles. “Maybe a few of them will sell, you never know! Come to think of it, you should definitely do an individual shoot. I can have my production company manager contact you on that one. She’ll negotiate a royalty rate—don’t tell her I told you this, but hold out for fifteen percent—and we can have the photo shoot done this week, with presales starting two weeks from now, and the actual poster for sale at worlds.” Victor nods as if it’s a done deal.

“You want to make a poster without you in it?” Yuuri is even more baffled. Of course some die-hard fans will buy their joint poster for Victor—Yuuri knows precisely how rabid Victor’s fans can be, since he is one of them—but one with just Yuuri on it? “That seems like a really…niche product, but…I guess?”

“Just think of it this way,” Victor says silkily. “If you only sell five hundred of them, and you’re getting fifteen percent, you’ll get a couple thousand dollars. Isn’t it worth a try?”

“I guess…?”

“Fair disclosure, so will I—or at least, my company will. Technically, I won’t make money until we sell about twelve hundred of them. But don’t worry about that.”

Yuuri has never not worried about anything that could be worried about in his life. He just laughs uneasily.

#

It’s a few days later, and Yuuri has had his hair done. He’s been made up to an inch of his life, and he’s been photographed until little specks of camera flash still dance in front of his eyes. They had to wake Victor up at some point to talk Yuuri through the shoot—something about Yuuri tensing up and looking unnatural—but it’s done, and now all Yuuri has to worry about are poor poster sales and Victor’s company losing money.

His phone flashes just as they’re winding up the shoot, with a familiar name: 勝生真利.

He answers, his heart beating hard. “Hi, Mari. Is something wrong?”

“Can I not just call my little brother for no reason?”

“You _can,_ but you _don’t.”_

“True.” There’s a pause. “I’m glad you’re doing a new poster. The only one we have up in the onsen is the old one you agreed to do to promote Hasetsu, and it’s aging.”

Yuuri looks around the studio, baffled. “We literally just finished the shoot? How did you know about the poster?”

“Would have been nice if I heard it from my own brother, right? I have to follow Phichit—and apparently Victor—on Twitter, if I want to know what’s going on with you.”

“Oh.” Oh, _no._ If she follows Victor on Twitter, she’s probably seen… Oh, _no._

“How _embarrassing.”_ He feels his face heat. “I guess I should have said something, but posters with my face on them… Mentioning it seems so self-indulgent or something. Gah.”

“Yuuri, I’m your big sister. I know more embarrassing facts about you than anyone on this planet. I’m not going to love you less because of them.”

For one moment, Yuuri can barely speak. It’s like Victor saying that he could love this part of him, too. He knows, deep down, that his family loved him, that they’d continued to love him even after he failed them and betrayed all their sacrifices at the Grand Prix Final.

He hadn’t ever let himself understand that love, let alone accept it. He lets himself feel it now, a warm blanket of acceptance, of Yuuri belonging to them, flaws and all.

“Thanks.” He exhales. “You too, you know.”

“Yeah, well. There’s nothing embarrassing in my past, so it’s a little easier for you.”

“Sure.” Yuuri smiles. “I mean, I’ve forgotten the entirety of your teen years.”

“Those weren’t embarrassing,” Mari says airily. “They didn’t happen. I went from being twelve to twenty-two overnight.”

“Uh huh.”

“So is there anything you want to tell me?”

Yuuri blinks. “Um?”

“You know, something you and your boyfriend are doing?”

“What?!” Yuuri feels himself turn red. “You want to know about our _sex life?”_

“No, ugh, keep the details to yourself. But you know, you might want to mention that you _have_ a boyfriend to your family? Especially if your Olympic gold-medalist Russian heartthrob is coming to Hasetsu in a couple of weeks. I mean, you do you, but maybe tell your family to expect a guest?”

“Oh.” Yuuri swallows. “Shit.”

“I’ve been DMing with him a little,” Mari says, “and he mentioned how he was excited to meet us all. So were you planning to mention any of this to us before he showed up?”

Yuuri flushes. “I forgot! I’ve been busy!”

“It’s cool, I mean, the two of you can share your twin bed! Or we could make him sleep on the floor in the old banquet room. _Or_ you could tell us so we could prepare properly.”

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s cool,” Mari says. “I’m just leaving up your childhood Victor posters in retaliation.”

“He knows about those,” Yuuri moans.

He can hear the click of her cigarette lighter. “We are pretty used to you at this point. Yuuko wants to know if you guys will do an exhibition at Ice Castle while you’re here.”

“Oh, um.” Yuuri flushes again. “Well, Victor would be a draw, but who else would we get to participate?”

“Besides you, you mean?”

“Me? I’m not a draw.”

Mari sighs. “Right. I’ll ask Victor.”

#

Yuuri’s list of embarrassing things continues the next day, after they’ve critiqued a run through of each other's routines and managed an impromptu heated mutual orgasm.

He’s looking in Victor’s eyes, their phones close at hand, both of them glowing with the aftermath of endorphins.

Maybe that’s why he blurts out the most embarrassing item on his list. “When I was fifteen, I used my mom’s credit card to buy an, um, adult image of you? It turns out it was just your head badly photoshopped onto a porn star’s body, but I didn’t care. But it turns out that it wasn’t even, um, a legitimate photoshopping outfit, but a credit card phishing scheme? The card number got stolen and someone bought $1500 worth of gasoline on my parent’s credit card and I had to admit the whole thing to my parents?” Yuuri hides his face in his hands. “Mari still teases me about it.”

“Well,” Victor says, “that’s reasonable. I would pay money for naked pictures of you.”

Yuuri splutters.

“I’m lucky you don’t charge me,” Victor says with a wink.“This is actually really fun! You should keep going. More list, Yuuri.”

“I learned how to land a triple axle by watching your junior free skate in slow motion, over and over again.”

“That just smart, not embarrassing. I did that with Stephane Lambiel!”

“I used to masturbate to ‘Oops! I did it again’ after your 2007 exhibition skate.”

“Oooooh noooo,” moans Victor, “now that one _is_ embarrassing. Don’t remind me, I can’t believe I skated to that.”

#

It’s not his own sister who contacts him the next day. It’s Victor’s. In fact, the message has been waiting in his Instagram for days before he logs in and notices it.

_This is Vasilisa Nikiforova. Victor said he told you about us. Give me your number. I have to talk to you._

Yuuri—in his childhood, and his early adulthood, and (okay, fine) pretty much at every point in his life, up to and including today—watched interviews with Vasilisa. Near the end of her career, Victor had started skating. Sometimes, Yuuri could spot him, six years old, on the rink behind her.

Vasilisa is in many ways the opposite of Victor. In skating, she was flexible and swift where Victor is athletic and strong. In interviews, she is blunt to the point of almost rudeness. Her career ended before the era of YouTube “greatest of” videos, but when Victor was in Juniors, she’d sat in on his interviews, too. Someone—and by someone, Yuuri means nikiforovfan17983, aka his teenaged self—had gone back afterwards and made a compilation of Vasilisa saying rude things and belatedly realizing they were rude after they came out of her mouth.

The fact that her message is abrupt is not surprising. The surprising part is that she’s contacted him at all.

With some trepidation, he sends his number.

His phone rings almost instantly with a French area code.

Yuuri bites his lip, lets it ring twice, and answers. “Hello?”

“Yuuri, it’s me.” She doesn’t bother to identify herself, or even introduce herself. “Victor told me about you. I want you to know that if you hurt him, I’m going to hunt you down and shred you to ribbons.”

Yuuri frowns at the wall. “Are you giving me the shovel talk?” He wonders if Mari had a conversation with Victor something like this over DMs, and if he should have told her not to.

“The _what?”_

“The shovel talk. You know, where you threaten to get a shovel to bury my body if I mess up…?”

“Oh.” She sounds surprised. “I hadn’t thought that far ahead. Just to the killing part. Not to the disposing of bodies.”

“Well, you should think ahead,” Yuuri hears himself say politely. “If I disappear mysteriously, and you’re arrested for my murder, that will hurt Victor even more. We can’t have that.”

“My wife is a professor in the chemistry department, so I have access to vast quantities of sulfuric acid. Will that work?”

Yuuri vaguely remembers this, too. The Soviet Union had collapsed on Vasilisa, effectively ending her career. She’d started coaching out of necessity, and had ended up marrying the aunt of one of her students. She’d moved herself and her rink to France.

Victor had switched to Yakov that year as a coach, but for some time after at least, she’d still come to her brother’s tournaments.

“Well. That’s definitely a better plan.” Yuuri considers. “Or it was. It’s no good anymore. You’d have to lure me into her lab. Now that you’ve told me about it, I’m unlikely to go willingly.”

“Damn.” She doesn’t sound upset. “Vitya said you were smart. But I want you to know I have your number.”

“I know? I just gave it to you.”

“Not your _phone_ number. I mean I know your type. You seduce my little brother at the banquet, play hard to get for weeks, and when he shows up to say hi to you, you slam the door in his face.” Her voice is hard and unforgiving. “I’m watching you, Yuuri Katsuki. I know what kind of person you are.”

“Oh.” Yuuri swallows. Victor had said he talked to his sister. “I didn’t realize he told you about _that.”_

“He called and asked for advice when you shut him out.”

Yuuri can’t help the sly snort that escapes. “Did you tell him to google?”

There’s a pause. “No,” she says slowly. “But that’s a really good idea. Better than anything I had! Next time—”

“No, don’t tell him to do that,” Yuuri says, wondering how terrible her advice was if Victor ended up running to Google for help after talking to her. “But really, why are _you_ lecturing _me_ about hurting Victor?”

“Because he’s a lot more vulnerable than he looks, and—”

“I know that, but _you’re_ the one who’s not talking to him in public.”

There’s a pause. “I talk to him. I talk to him all the time. He knows it’s just for show.”

“Yes, but do you go to his matches? Does he go to your house for holidays? Does he get to spend time with his nieces?”

“I—well—It’s only for a few years, not even that at this point, and—”

“A few _years._ You’re the only family he has, and he doesn’t have anyone to call home except Makkachin. And you think that just because it’s for a few years—it’s been what, four now?—that it doesn’t matter.”

This is met with a longer pause. “He says he doesn’t mind. He _always_ says he doesn’t mind. I mind more than he does, in fact—”

“It’s Victor,” Yuuri says. “He _likes_ making people happy. He lives for it. If he got it into his head that it would be better for the girls to grow up not having him and the press surrounding him in the picture, he wouldn’t hesitate. No matter how much it bothered him. Do you really think he’d _tell_ you if it was bothering him? He’d laugh and say it was fine.”

“Of course he…” There’s a long pause. “Of course he would not.” She sighs. “Crap.”

Belatedly, Yuuri realizes that he just told Victor’s sister something that he shouldn’t have. “Um, that is, Victor—maybe I shouldn’t have, when we talked about it, he didn’t tell me I could tell you…”

“Oh, boo, privacy, whatever,” Vasilisa says. “He’s my _brother._ This is a problem. I promised that I would rip anyone who hurt Victor to pieces, but my wife is unlikely to allow me to use her departmental resources to dispose of my own body. She’s picky like that.”

“Your death wouldn’t really make Victor feel better, either,” Yuuri points out.

“True.”

There’s another long pause, deep and awkward. Yuuri had often imagined what his first conversation with Victor’s sister would be like—mostly, when he was younger, and Victor was still publicly talking to her, he’d vaguely imagined that she’d catch sight of him in some international competition and ask to coach him, and he’d move to France and one day Victor would show up, tall and sexy and ready to seduce one of Vasilisa’s students.

As spankbank material went, this one had been utterly ridiculous—after Victor left, Vasilisa had only coached junior women. Besides, Yuuri had been young enough at the time that Victor wouldn’t have been interested. Finally, Vasilisa was known as a terror of a coach, who would undoubtedly not have allowed her brother to predate upon her students, even if that had been his inclination.

Still.

“Crap,” Vasilisa said. “I just took your advice.”

“My advice? What advice? I didn’t give you any advice.”

“I just googled,” she said.

Yuuri almost chokes on laughter. “No, _don’t_ do that. Have you considered just calling him and telling him you want to stop your stupid charade?”

“Too boring and too late.” She sounds dismissive. “I googled ‘How should Vasilisa and Victor Nikiforov make up’ which you would think would be far too specific?”

Had Yuuri thought that Victor and Vasilisa were nothing alike? He was wrong. Completely wrong.

“But apparently our relationship has been the subject of _numerous_ articles. Also a five plus one fic RPF on AO3.”

“You know what five plus one fics are?”

“I am, to my now burning shame, a bigtime Superwholock.” She sighs. “Need I say more?”

“No.”

“Everyone thinks I should just show up in the Kiss and Cry at one of his tournaments and surprise him. Idiots; how am I supposed to get into the Kiss and Cry without telling him? It’s not like the ISU just lets anyone wander in off the street, and I coach junior women, so it’s not like I could get the credentials without tipping him off.”

“Oh,” Yuuri said. “That is a shame. If _only_ you knew someone who was also in the mens’ figure skating division.”

She just sighs louder, missing the hint. “If only I did. I just didn’t keep up with that whole men thing after Victor, you know.”

“If only the one person you knew cared about Victor. If only you hadn’t just threatened to kill him.”

“Oh.” There’s a long pause. “Crap. I am supposed to think before I speak, but I always forget.”

“Just kidding,” Yuuri says with a half-smile. “It turns out that I’m an adult, and my coach has taken the position that anyone I say is on my team is on my team and can get a pass from the ISU. If you want to take the dramatic route.”

There’s another, longer pause.

“Crap,” Vasilisa says. “The timing of worlds is…not good. My wife has a conference, and she’s taking the kids for me the week before when I’m at Junior worlds.”

“We can figure something out,” Yuuri says with more assurance than he feels. “I’m sure we can.”

“Besides, if I’m getting an ISU pass, _someone_ will leak something to Victor.”

“I’ll just tell Celestino to make the pass out for Nikiforov. He’ll think it’s Victor again, and nothing will get out.”

“You really do think of everything,” she says.

Yuuri looks upward. “I’m, um, really good at thinking about what to do in worst case scenarios,” he says, deadpan. “Thinking up worst case scenarios is, um, kind of my speciality? Occasionally, it comes in handy.”

#

Yuuri’s exams hit him like a freight train—heavy, traveling at very low speeds, and not stopping ever though his body is sprawled over the tracks after repeated hours practicing his jumps.

“Not good enough,” Victor says of his free skate run through the night after his first exam. “Do you really think you can beat me with that? I wish we had time to rechoreograph the whole thing.”

Yuuri sighs and just tries harder. He _has_ to get better, needs it with a desperation he can almost taste. His evening skate is going better than his free program practice, but he’s not about to tell Victor that he’s learning _Stammi Vicino_. He has to save _some_ of his embarrassing incidents for later.

#

He doesn’t save all of them.

“I once binge-watched the entirety of Doctor Who in a little over a week,” he says the night before his second exam, remembering the last time his eyes hurt this much.“Do you know how many episodes there are in a season? My eyes hurt. My ass hurt.”

“That doesn’t have anything to do with me.”

“No? But it’s still embarrassing.”

“Maybe,” Victor muses, “but it’s not as fun.”

“Okay, at last year’s Worlds, I only fell asleep the night before the free skate because I imagined ramming into you at open practice, and then you saying that you wouldn’t tell the press I did it on purpose if I gave you a blowjob.”

“Wait,” Victor says, “you thought I would _blackmail_ you into sex?”

“No, no, of course not! It’s a fantasy, Victor, it’s not _real.”_

“Well, I wouldn’t,” Victor says with a sniff. “Why didn’t you run into me at open practice? We could have been having so much fun between now and then?”

“I didn’t know you wouldn’t blackmail me! How was I supposed to know that when we first talked you’d make jokes about us having a sevensome instead?”

“A…a what?”

“A… Um…” Yuuri feels himself flush, which should be impossible, because he’s been divulging his most embarrassing secrets for an hour now. “You know, back in Sochi? When you handed me a dime and said you wanted six of me?”

“That was for a Grand Prix Final!” Victor protests. “I feel like I should fall into a maidenly swoon because of your lewd assumptions. I don’t want a sevensome! Yuuri, I don’t have that many holes!”

Yuuri has thought of Victor in a thousand different ways over the years—some of them polite, some of them decidedly less so. Imagining six of him congregated around him and arguing over who gets the blowjob…

No. Wait. He wouldn’t argue, not even with himself.

He can’t help it. He starts to snicker.

“That’s not that funny, Yuuri!”

“I was just imagining the conversation with myself. ‘No, you have the blowjob, really, I’m okay over here.’ ‘It’s fine, I don’t mind, you should do it!’ Victor, we would never get _anywhere.”_

“Well, it’s a good thing there’s only one of you,” Victor says. “Really, is this all the embarrassing you have?”

“You’ve already seen my free skate at the Grand Prix final. Wasn’t that enough?”

“I don’t know,” Victor says, “it feels to me like the act of living is the act of being embarrassed. You do stupid things. You want stupid things. Your past self lived to make your present self say, ‘oh god, why did I buy that?’ or ‘did I actually say that on international television’ or ‘what possessed me to make an ad selling shaving cream when I was not yet old enough to shave yet?’”

“That last one seems…oddly specific,” Yuuri mutters.

“The longer you live,” Victor says, “the more stupid things you acquire. It’s like gold medals.”

“You’re literally the only person on the planet who keeps acquiring more gold medals the longer you live.”

“Now you should be embarrassed! You forgot Serena Williams.”

“Right.” Yuuri blushes harder.

“In any event,” Victor says airily. “That’s not the point. Doing stupid things is a badge of pride, and life rewards you for them.”

“Really? How?”

“Well, most people would think that getting drunk and grinding on your idol at a banquet would be stupid, but it appears to have netted you one Victor Nikiforov.”

“Oh,” Yuuri says.

“I don’t want a Yuuri who never does embarrassing things,” Victor says. “I want _this_ one.”

#

Junior worlds hits near the end of Yuuri’s exams. Victor, apparently, accompanies the Russian team.

Yuuri thinks of Vasalisa there, but she’s overwhelmed—she has three contestants from three different countries vying for a place in the top ten.

Yuuri watches the livestream of the junior men’s practice as he’s going over flashcards. He sees Victor at the boards, his hands gesturing as an angry young skater goes up to him.

In fact—wait. He pauses the stream momentarily and enlarges the frame. Yes. He _thought_ he saw that.

He reaches for his phone. _Is it just me, or did Yuri Plisetsky’s skate blades magically change color to black sometime between now and the Junior GPF?_

On the screen, he sees Victor, blurry and low-resolution, at the side of the rink. He pulls his phone out from his pocket, glances at the screen, and grins.

_It’s not magic, Yuuri. It’s ~~science~~_

_So you told him?_

On screen, Victor bows over his phone. _Yeah, I had a talk with Yakov about where I was, and what I wanted, and he asked me if I wanted to take over as Yuri and Mila’s jump coach._

Yuuri frowns. _That seems like a lot of work on top of everything else._

_Says the man finishing his college degree. :P_

Yuuri gives the finger to the livestream, before realizing that Victor can’t see him. _Boo,_ he responds.

_Yakov already thinks I work too hard, but I pointed out that it keeps me from overtraining, and… we both agreed I need to be thinking about what I’ll be doing once I retire. Yakov’s letting me transition into some more coach-like activities and… it’s part of the treasure map._

_Overtraining?_ Yuuri frowns. He doesn’t want to think about the treasure map, about the fact that Victor seems to think that it’s necessary still.

_Do you remember how I disappeared between Europeans and Worlds last year?_

Yuuri nods, and then remembers to type: _Yes?_

_Minor stress fracture. I stayed off the ice for four weeks, took three weeks to frantically train up for Worlds, and um…I may have lied to Yakov about the actual reason I was staying away? He definitely wouldn’t have let me skate at Worlds if he had known I was doing it against doctor’s orders._

Yuuri inhales.

_He was so mad when he found out. But I wasn’t really violating orders. The doctor said I could do light water exercise and ice is just frozen water, right?_

_Victor._ Yuuri hopes his exasperation comes through.

 _Everyone expected me to win,_ Victor writes. _I didn’t want to let them down. Yakov banned me from the ice for six weeks after worlds. I went to Sochi with Makkachin and tried to relax. I couldn’t. There was no me to relax anymore._

Yuuri exhales slowly.

_I ended up cheating at the three week mark and having my skates shipped to me. Yakov found out and he flew down and yelled at me. “What would Russia do if you injured yourself permanently, Vitya,” blah blah blah._

_In his defense,_ Yuuri types slowly, _it sounds like a good question._

_It was. I didn’t have an answer. I’d been skating so long. Nobody wanted me for anything other than skating. How could they? I didn’t know myself for anything other than skating. I had nothing else to give them. The end of my career was in sight, and it was just like me: terrifyingly blank._

Yuuri’s heart wells over. _You’re not blank, Victor. You’re wonderful. You’re the best Victor in the entire world, and I’m so glad I’ve gotten to know you as so much more than your skating._

He can see Victor on the livestream smile faintly at his phone. _You know my theme for the year? I had nothing to give my audience but the questions I had—to lay myself terrifyingly bare before them. Who am I? If I stop skating, will I just disappear, or does anyone care about me? Do any of you see me as anything but a quad machine? Do I even matter to anyone? Is there even a me to matter? I guess Stammi Vicino in many ways was written for my audience—the people who claimed to care—because they were all I had, and they were nothing, all at the same time. I was afraid of losing them._

 _Let me answer,_ Yuuri writes. _Yes, you matter. So much._

_By the time the Grand Prix Final rolled around, they’d talked about my quads and my artistry and my music and my accomplishments. They hadn’t talked, or even asked, about *me.* And that was an answer all on its own._

_Victor._

_And then… I met Yuuri. And he didn’t want me for a commemorative photo, but he did want to dance with me, and… And other stuff. So I’m working on it. I’m working on it all._

Yuuri is working on it, too. The fact that nobody has ever loved Victor as he deserves to be loved makes the matter all the more important now. Yuuri needs to do it. He needs to do it best.

He needs to love Victor as hard as he can and finish his last exam and nail that quad loop in place.

#

He manages his exam.

#

Yuuri graduates. Victor stays on his phone through the ceremony, connected via livestream, and as he’s leaving, a courier finds him and asks if he’s Yuuri Katsuki. He’s given the biggest bouquet he has ever received in his life.

#

There is no time to sleep afterward. Yuuri packs frantically, and when he’s not packing or taking boxes to be mailed back to the onsen, he’s on the ice, practicing. He goes to Tokyo two days after graduation and spends the entire train ride practicing his choreography down the aisle to the accompaniment of hamster squeaks.

Phichit arrives two hours after Yuuri does. He’s reunited with his hamsters. He cries and posts photos to Instagram, and then takes off to go sight-seeing.

Yuuri retreats to his hotel room to attempt to hastily sleep off two weeks of exam-related sleep debt before the most important competition of his life.

It’s become strangely hard to sleep without little hamsters squeaking in the background. Yuuri wakes up repeatedly, confused in the unnatural silence of his darkened room, before drifting off once more.

Twenty-three hours later, his phone wakes him from his groggy rest to tell him that it’s time to leave.

For the airport, soon, but first…

He’d picked out a shrine near the hotel with an auspicious name. He walks in, and while he’s looking at the available emas, finds a piece of wood with a fish in water. He thinks of Victor saying that ice is just frozen water, and picks this one.

 _Let me have him,_ he writes on the back. It’s all his hopes—for Victor, for his programs, for his quad loop. _Let me have him forever._

He hangs it up with a sense of unreality, and then has to go, or he really will be late. He wakes himself up with coffee on the train out to Narita, tapping his foot impatiently, only to end up in the arrivals hall, tapping his foot impatiently once again, waiting for Victor to clear customs.

Victor finally arrives, a flash of silver hair, and even though Yuuri knows that there’s probably some enterprising paparazzo filming their reunion, he doesn’t care. He launches himself into Victor’s arms, holding him tight, kissing him.

“Hi, Yuuri.” Victor pulls back just far enough to set his forehead against Yuuri’s.

“Victor. I missed you so much.”

“So.” Victor smiles at Yuuri. “We’re, um. Going to do the thing we talked about doing? Right now?”

Yuuri feels himself flush all over. They’ve talked about so many things. They talked about having sex against that wall, right over there…

“Yeah,” he says. “Yeah. If you’re going to be here for a few weeks, we need to go get you a Japanese SIM.”

Victor is jet-lagged, and Yuuri is still sleep-deprived. They make their way back to the hotel. Victor showers, and even though they have weeks of yearning still floating between them, they just kiss themselves to sleep.

#

Yuuri wakes up.

It’s the day before the short program, and Victor is cuddled in his arms. He’s feeling like he’s refreshed for the first time in months, possibly years. Victor’s hair falls in a silver line over his arm; Yuuri traces his hand down his lover’s cheek, impossibly caught on how much he loves him, how much he wants to give him.

Victor’s eyes flutter open. They sparkle; Victor’s whole face blazes into an impossible smile. “I want to wake up like this forever,” he whispers. “I love you.”

“Sorry,” Yuuri replies, just as softly. “You can’t have this forever. This will pretty much never happen like this again. I’m pretty sure once you’re not jetlagged, you’re going to be waking up before me for a long time.”

“Okay.” Victor grins and leans in for a kiss. “As long as it’s a really, _really_ long time.”

“I want to love you as much as you love me,” Yuuri tells him solemnly, when he breaks away. “I want to throw everything I have into loving you, but that might not be enough. I want to love you so much, Victor.”

“You do.” Victor’s eyes shut. “You do.”

“I’m such a mess,” Yuuri confesses. “I’ll never make it up to you. It takes more work to love me.”

“Ha.” Another kiss. “You’re not a mess. You’re just organized differently. That makes it easier to love you, not harder.”

Yuuri’s hand is on Victor’s hip. Victor slides his fingers lower, to Yuuri’s groin, palming him through the fabric of his pajamas.

“Okay?”

Yuuri moves his own hand. “So okay.”

The kisses slide into lazy handjobs, Victor shivering in Yuuri’s arms, gasping against his lips with every stroke before coming undone and spilling all over his fingers. When he’s done, he turns and takes Yuuri slowly, perfectly apart.

There’s no time for laziness after they’ve finished, though. There’s practice, and going over the jumps together, and interviews—both separate and together—until there’s nothing left of the day but falling into bed in an exhausted stupor at the end.

“Afterward,” Victor says as they’re drifting off in each other's arms. “I’m so glad I’m staying afterward, so we’ll have time to…”

He doesn’t finish his sentence.

#

There’s no time for laziness the next morning, either. Yuuri’s morning practice session is before Victor’s, and after that, there’s another round of interviews; since this is in Japan, there’s a plethora of Japanese reporters, and apparently Yuuri’s gold at Four Continents is leading them to make wild predictions. Someone is apparently putting together an hour-long special, just about Yuuri.

Yuuri is baffled, so baffled. He does not understand why TV stations no longer like viewers.

Victor and Yuuri scarcely have a chance to grab lunch together. Victor wishes Yuuri good luck, and then that’s it, the short program is starting.

Yuuri takes the ice well before Victor. He strikes his opening pose and feels the flutter of nerves that run through his belly.

Victor’s been practicing that fifth quad; if Yuuri doesn’t nail his short program, he’ll have no chance of beating him. Yuuri really, really wants to win, to show the world that he matters, that he deserves to be here, deserves _Victor,_ deserves to have him for as long as he can hold onto him.

He skates to the center. In the seconds before his music starts, he hears someone call out—“Ganbatte, Yuuri-kun!” and “Yuuri, davai!” and then, quite distinctly: “His ass is definitely better than Victor’s.”

Good thing he’s skating for Victor, not this bunch of idiots.

When Celestino put together his short program, he’d always felt like it was about reaching—about reaching for his dreams, for the hopes of his family and his country, borne on Yuuri’s too-easily bowed shoulders. It has always been about reaching for Victor.

All his life, he’s been reaching, the distance between them so impossibly wide that it felt foolish to even try. Yuuri’s been trying—foolishly—all his life.

Every season, it has felt like he’s closed the gap between them by half, and then half, and then half again, a real-life Xeno’s paradox that leaves him destined to come within kissing distance of greatness, but never to achieve it.

The music starts, and after three seconds, Yuuri follows. He’s spent all season following his short program—that reach into the triple axel, perfectly landed, his flying sit-spin, the step sequence.

The great thing about understanding calculus is recognizing that an infinite series can still sum to a finite limit, that you can lose yourself in a paradox on paper, and yet still go out and cross seemingly impossible distances every day.

The Victor he dreamed about at the beginning of the season was unattainable. He can feel himself reaching for Victor, _his_ Victor, across the ice, knowing that he’ll reach back.

Yuuri had tossed his quad Salchow in favor of the flip. He wobbles a bit too much on the landing; his fingers just miss grazing the ice. _Shit._ He needed to be perfect for Victor. It’ll be impossible to reach him this way.

It’s hard to think that Victor is impossible when Yuuri knows his smell, his sound, his _taste._ Quad toe, double toe—he’s landed all his jumps, and just like that, the music winds down.

He can’t find Victor in the audience. He squints hazily at the scoreboard, watching his blurry form almost perfectly land that quad flip…

“The scores, please,” the announcer says.

He’s scored 104.89, his personal best. It’s not good enough. He knows it, even though he shoots savagely into first place.

He stays in first through nine more skaters until Victor steps on the ice, blows a kiss in Yuuri’s direction, and beats his score by twelve points.

#

That night, they’re too exhausted—and too clearly interested in holding onto what little strength they have—to do anything except cuddle. Even that is interrupted by weary yawns.

“So,” Victor says. “Are you going for the loop in your free?”

“You’re twelve points ahead of me.” Yuuri nuzzles Victor’s shoulder. “I have to go for the loop.”

“Would’ve told you to do it if you asked,” Victor says sleepily. “Make me fight. Make me doubt I can win. Make me…”

He falls asleep before he can say what else he wants Yuuri to do.

Love him, Yuuri hopes. Love him as fiercely and tenderly and imperfectly as he can.

#

“So, first one who ratifies a quad loop gets a blowjob, right?” Victor says, skating up to Yuuri the next day, just as they are both leaving open practice.

Yuuri just looks at him, his heart in his throat. Victor’s been landing the loop more consistently than Yuuri—“but not consistently enough that I want to put it in the program,” he says, “not unless I have to.”

But Yuuri’s skating first. It’s almost as if Victor knows already, knows how much Yuuri has invested in the jump, knows what it will mean if Yuuri lands it.

Everything. It will mean everything.

He fakes a casualness he doesn’t mean. “Aw, too bad. And here I’d hoped to give you one this afternoon.”

They barely manage to make it up to Victor’s room before Victor is on him, kissing him, pushing him into the sheets and practically sucking his orgasm from his body, before Yuuri can return the favor.

Celestino’s only remark on their abrupt disappearance from the ice is a dry text: _Remember to STRETCH and get plenty of fluids._

 _Yes, coach,_ Yuuri responds, when he finally sees his phone again.

 _HYDRATING fluids,_ Celestino specifies for some odd reason.

Yuuri shows his phone to Victor. “Is there another kind?”

“Um…” Victor kisses Yuuri . “Alcohol. Coffee. And…”

Yuuri can still taste Victor’s come. Oh. _Oh._ God, how embarrassing. He can’t believe his coach had to tell them that.

#

They sit watching the men’s free program together the next day. Phichit skates twelfth, in the second-to-last group. Victor screams with Yuuri when his combined score puts him temporarily in first place, guaranteeing him those two Grand Prix Final qualifying slots next year.

Phichit flashes triumphant peace signs to the audience from the Kiss and Cry.

More skaters go by; Phichit is knocked into second, then third, but he hangs onto that position until Seung Gil Lee, in seventh, skates.

Yuuri and Victor watch him from the side of the rink, waiting for their warm up skate. He’s good—there were some technical flaws in his short program that knocked him down the rankings, but he’s _good._

Out of nowhere, in the back half of his program—

“Holy shit.” Victor’s hand tightens around Yuuri’s. “Was that a quad loop?”

It _was_ a quad loop.

Yuuri almost cries. He thinks of all his hours training on the ice, all the time he put in. He was going to show he was good enough for Victor, that he was good enough to love Victor, good enough to be first, just the way Victor was.

After all this, Seung Gil Lee is the first to ratify the first quad loop in competition.

“It’s a good thing,” Victor says slowly, “that we didn’t make the blowjob bet official, or…”

Yuuri snorts. He won’t let this get to him. It’s not an omen, that someone else landed the jump that he’s pinned all his hopes on first. It doesn’t mean anything.

If he skates perfectly, it will still convey all his love, and Victor will still understand.

When the official announces it’s time for the final group of men to warm up, he slides out onto the ice.

Yuuri hasn’t quite lost his calm. He gathers up all his nerve, and when they call his name to introduce him to the world, he doesn’t think—he just acts.

His quad loop in this warm-up is so perfect, it feels like the ice practically sizzles beneath him. He can hear the commentators roar to life.

He passes Victor, just before they call _his_ name, and Victor gives him a breathless, beautiful smile.

Yuuri’s ready. He’s ready to take on Victor. He _has_ to be.

#

Celestino is smiling at him when he comes off the ice. He’s also shaking his head.

“By Victor’s complete lack of surprise in response to that reckless display,” he says dryly, “I’m guessing that you told him you’re training the quad loop.”

“Oh.” Yuuri feels embarrassed, but only momentarily. “I…um, yeah… I…” He sighs. “I…might have mentioned it…the day after you told me not to? Um. Sorry.” He’s not actually sorry.

Celestino just rolls his eyes, like he knows that Yuuri’s lying, and pats Yuuri’s shoulder. “You’re an adult, Yuuri. It’s always been the case that you get to make your own decisions. I’m your coach, not your jailer, and if you want to talk to Victor about jumps, I guess you can.”

Well. That’s nice. Not that he needed permission. Not that he’d do anything else. Still. It’s nice not to have to fight.

Celestino is smiling at him fondly as they make their way to the skaters’ area. “I want to tell you how proud I am of you. You’ve come so far this season. For the years we’ve been training together, you’ve done well, but I always wondered if maybe I wasn’t bringing out the best in you, if there was something I should have been doing differently. Sometimes, coaches have skaters who never reach their full potential…but I just knew you could. It’s been wonderful to see you blossom.”

Yuuri hates last-minute encouragement in the form of praise. He shrugs one shoulder, hoping it will stop soon. “Thanks, Celestino.”

“Even if I’m not sure how much credit I can take as your coach for that particular transformation.”

Yuuri blushes. But before he can offer some sort of reassurance, Celestino goes on.

“Look, Yuuri. I know you worry about things, and I know we haven’t talked about your coming back to Detroit next year. You’ve been busy finishing college, and I know big decisions stress you out. I’m not trying to pressure you in any way. But I want you to know that I want what’s best for you, no matter what your decision may be. I always have.”

“Um, thanks?” Yuuri is now more confused than ever.

“Of course, if you think I’m the one to keep bringing you forward, I would love to continue working with you. But I am on your side, and there will be no hard feelings no matter what you choose. If you decide to go with Victor for good, I will think well of you and applaud you at every tournament.”

“Victor?” Yuuri frowns at Celestino. His skin prickles. He’d been holding on to his calm with his fingernails. Now, his ease feels surface-shallow—as if he’s just realized that there’s an ocean of unknown currents beneath these too-quiet ripples. “Why would I ask _Victor_ to be my coach?”

Celestino just blinks at him. “I admit, this has been the weirdest co-coaching arrangement I’ve ever had, but…isn’t he your coach already?”

“Why would you think that?”

As soon as Yuuri asks the question, though, he understands. Seen from a certain angle, Victor looks _exactly_ like his coach. Victor sent him his skating software. Victor goes over his jumps with him. Victor showed up at Four Continents and got a rink pass, and then gave him advice on how to alter his program; Yuuri asked for Nikiforov to have a rink pass, and while he’s left that with the front desk for their upcoming skate, Celestino no doubt thought it was for Victor.

Victor looks a _lot_ like his coach. Huh.

Celestino just looks inordinately confused. “Isn’t he?”

“He—I—No, I thought, he’s my—”

Boyfriend, Yuuri wants to say. But they haven’t agreed on a term. Dating, he wants to say, but aside from that first breakfast, they actually haven’t gone on a single thing that they’ve called a date. He blurts out the first thing that comes into his mind.

“It’s not—no, you have it wrong—Celestino, we’re having sex.”

“I…gathered as much. That’s really not the way I prefer to coach,” Celestino’s voice is particularly dry. “But he’s not taking advantage of you, it doesn’t seem, and I don’t see the harm in that. Yuuri, I’m trying to tell you it’s okay. You don’t need to worry about hurting my feelings. I know I wasn’t at the Grand Prix Final banquet, but I told you, I heard all the gossip.”

Yuuri feels a chill run down his spine. “Gossip? About…?”

“You asking Victor to be your coach.”

Oh. _Oh._ No. Yuuri feels like he’s been punched in the stomach. Oh no no no no _no._

He’s thought about the treasure map a handful of times in the last few weeks, but he didn’t _ask_. He’s almost tried to forget it.

Maybe because deep down, after what Victor said in the cab ride back from Taipei, he knew that he didn’t want to know.

But this? _You asked Victor to be your coach._

No. No. He couldn’t have. He _couldn’t_ have.

It’s not that it’s unbelievable. It’s both terrible and incredibly realistic. It’s exactly the kind of thing Drunk Yuuri would do—demand that a world champion give up his career to coach him. To make Victor think that all he wanted him for was his skating and his skating advice.

_Victor, I’ll have sex with you. Just tell me everything you know about skating._

The evidence that he did this is… Victor himself. Victor, saying _I’ve never actually told anyone about this before but Yakov, but…_ and then telling Yuuri anyway because it was on the treasure map. Victor, talking about Yuri Plisetsky, saying, _well, Yakov’s letting me transition into some more coach-like activities, and… it’s part of the treasure map._

Victor, demanding Yuuri’s training schedule? That was part of the treasure map, too.

The idea of the treasure map had always made Yuuri subtly uneasy. He’d imagined that _he_ was the treasure, the chest of gold waiting at the spot marked X.

How could he have been so stupid? _Victor_ is the one who has given himself selflessly to Yuuri. _Victor_ thinks of Yuuri as a beauty worth a legendary labor. And what could be more laborious than coaching a dime-a-dozen skater to undeserved brilliance?

Yuuri’s self-centered imagination had it all backwards. In their relationship, _Victor_ has always been the treasure, not the treasure hunter. Yuuri has been the one who visited, who demanded, who plundered. Yuuri has just taken and taken and taken.

But… If Victor was unhappy, wouldn’t he have _said_ something about it?

He can almost hear his own response to Vasilisa in his mind. Victor would never admit he was happy if he thought Yuuri wanted it.

It all feels so different now, Yuuri’s desire to win at Worlds. He’d thought of it as a way to show his love, his respect, to a man he loves and adores. Instead, he’s taken Victor’s secrets. He’s stolen his time, his advice, his computer program. He’s imposed on Victor’s good nature.

Now he’s planning to rob him of his title, too.

“Yuuri?” Celestino sets a hand on his shoulder. “Is something wrong? I didn’t think this would be upsetting. Are you okay?”

“Victor.” Yuuri chokes. “I… I didn’t. I didn’t know I asked him to be my coach. I didn’t remember.”

“Really?” Celestino looks dubious. Of _course_ he looks dubious. Who would believe Yuuri, under the circumstances?

The treasure map has led Yuuri to riches and posters and literal gold—two of them, first at All Japan, and then at Four Continents. Yuuri doesn’t want any of that anymore. He wants to vomit. All he wants is to love Victor the way Victor loved him, and, oh, god, he’s been doing _this_ to him instead.

Making Victor over into a coach. Yuuri is just another person who is using him.

Applause again—that’s JJ’s skate finishing. Otabek Altin is up next, then Christophe, then Yuuri.

For a long, drawn out moment, Yuuri tries to tell himself that it’s okay, that they can fix this, that he can just tell Victor that he doesn’t want his coaching, doesn’t _need_ it, doesn’t want Victor to have to pretend any longer.

But what is their relationship, except an extension of Yuuri’s selfishness? They’ve talked about skating and dogs, dogs and skating. Victor coaching Yuuri is so deeply baked into their conversations that there’s no separating love from selfishness any longer.

Victor said it himself: there’s nothing between them without the treasure map. _Nothing._

There’s no getting around it. Yuuri asked Victor to be his coach, and Victor complied.

There’s no solving this, either. Yuuri has to—his mind whirls impossibly, searching for a solution—leave. He has to leave. He has to withdraw, now. He can’t look Victor in the face, not now, not knowing that he’s done everything to the man he loves that he feared happening to himself.

He has to _go._

Yuuri takes a deep breath and turns to the exit.

“Yuuri!” Celestino’s hand lands on his shoulder.

He stops. No. No. He can’t. He can’t do that either. Not just because his family is relying on him, not just because it would screw Japan and all three of the hypothetical fans who bought his poster, not just because it would destroy his career in professional figure skating if he walked out of the competition at this moment.

He can’t leave because he promised Victor. He promised him he would never shut him outside again, and here he is—planning to do just that.

Yuuri inhales and focuses on that promise.

“Victor,” he says. It’s the only word he’s sure of in this world anymore.“I have to talk to Victor.”

Victor is with Yakov down the hallway, running through his program, looking up and extending an arm in choreography that Yuuri knows as well as his own heartbeat.

He stops in place, beaming, as Yuuri approaches. But his smile falters when he sees the look on Yuuri’s face.

“Yuuri,” he asks. “What’s wrong?”

“Victor.” Yuuri wants to sink to his knees, to apologize. But he doesn’t deserve forgiveness. Instead, he takes Victor’s hands. “Victor, I have to know something.”

Victor just smiles at him as if nothing’s wrong. “Sure. What?”

For him, nothing _is_ wrong. For him, this is what their relationship has _always_ been—giving, always giving to Yuuri, and getting nothing in return.

No. Yuuri’s jumping to conclusions. He promised Victor he wouldn’t shut him out, and so he has to ask, he has to—

Yuuri inhales. “Did I ask you to be my coach at the Grand Prix Final?”

Victor freezes.

For a moment, Yuuri has the wonderful hope that maybe he didn’t. That maybe Celestino was wrong, that maybe Yuuri’s stupid anxiety has latched onto what is a rumor for no reason. For a moment, he thinks that maybe he still has a chance to love Victor as fiercely and as well as Victor deserves.

Then Victor smiles at him. “Yuuri, you don’t remember? Yes, of course you did.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Er… Right. Let’s end this…
> 
> I mean, let’s end this chapter right here.
> 
> Next up: we find out what’s actually on the danged treasure map. Thank you all for sticking with this fic through angst and hamsters and, um, just everything. We’re almost to the spot marked by the X. The final chapter will be out two weeks from now, on Tuesday, November 14th, at 10 AM PST.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> X marks the spot. Free skates happen. Other stuff.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wanted to thank you all for coming on this ride with me. This...did not turn out at all like I expected it to, back when I thought it was like an under 20K one shot. Haaaaaaa. It did not turn out at all like I expected it to, back when I had sketched out what I thought was a rough "first draft" that I figured was something like 40-50K. I'll...maybe explain what happened, if people eventually want, but...this ended up being more, and just a little deeper, then I had ever intended to go.
> 
> There's a lot of me in this fic, and it means so much to me that it's meant something to the rest of you, too.

“No.” The word comes out of Yuuri’s mouth unbidden. “No, no.”

He doesn’t know why he’s denying it; he knows it’s true. He asked Victor to be his coach. Celestino said it. _Victor_ said it. Everything he’s hoped for, everything he’s done—none of it means anything, none of it means _anything._ All these months, he’s gradually allowed himself to hope. No, to _believe._ To _dare_ to think he could possibly be worthy of Victor Nikiforov.

He should have known the truth. He has set himself up for failure from the very first instant.

“No,” he says again, and his voice cracks in an ugly, desperate way. “No, _don’t._ _Don’t_ be my coach, please, don’t, don’t, don’t.”

“You don’t want me to be your coach?” Victor’s voice sounds impossibly distant.

“No. No, I don’t want it, I don’t.”

But it’s a lie. Drunk Yuuri asked for something that Yuuri’s secretly wanted for years. As much as he loved the idea of Vasilisa seeing Yuuri and demanding that she coach him, he wanted it to be Victor more, Victor who took one look at Yuuri and inhaled, wanting, wanting him on the ice and off, wanting to coach him, wanting to guide him with a hand on his back. He’s dreamed of Victor teaching him everything he knew about…well, _everything._

 _Stupid_ fantasies.

Yuuri vision swims. He can’t focus; the air in the hall seems thick as chowder. He can’t think. He can barely breathe.

In the background, he can hear the sounds of someone skating—the low strains of JJ’s music. The crowd makes a pained noise, like JJ just missed a jump, and Yuuri can sympathize.

He feels like he’s been sailing on the largest, longest jump, ever since he met Victor—nothing but the swish of air around him, rotating until he’s dizzy, the hope of the landing…

There is no hope now. There’s nothing left to come but the inevitable crash against the ice.

All he can do is try to land without breaking anything and apologize to Victor for what he’s done.

Yuuri exhales, contemplating the floor.

Something lands on the floor in front of him—a round dark spot, then another, droplets of…water?

No. Tears.

Yuuri has one moment of total confusion. His eyes are stinging, but _he’s_ not actually crying. And if it’s not him…

Yuuri blinks salt away and looks up.

Victor has turned away from him, just a little, and he’s looking off into the distance.

“Victor?”

Yuuri steps forward tentatively. It doesn’t make sense, how could it make _sense,_ how—

He brushes Victor’s fringe away, and yes, it’s true, and his heart aches so much at the sight. Victor is crying. _Victor_ is crying. _He_ hurt Victor. He hurt him. It’s all his fault, and he has to make it better.

Yuuri exhales. “I’m sorry,” he says. “I’m so sorry, Victor. I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to do this to you.”

Victor doesn’t wipe his cheeks. He doesn’t rub his eyes. He’s the most beautiful ever, even when he’s crying. He just looks at Yuuri and smiles through the crystal droplets that gather on his lashes.

“Why are you apologizing? It’s not your fault. It’s mine. It’s not like we talked about this when you were sober. I should have said something.”

“ _I_ should have said something.” Yuuri swallows. “I knew…there were some things that I asked for that probably made me uncomfortable, and…I was avoiding them? I just didn’t realize that it would make you feel so badly. I’m sorry, Victor. I never meant to impose.”

Victor gives him a wan smile. “Oh, Yuuri. I wish you did.”

Yuuri’s not sure what this means. He just knows that it’s wrong. It’s all wrong. _He’s_ all wrong, he’s the one who is at fault here. He doesn’t even realize he’s started crying, too, until Victor takes a step forward. He lifts his finger to Yuuri’s cheek, brushing at the tears that are falling.

“Yuuri?” His eyes are soft, so soft and tender, that Yuuri wants to vomit. He doesn’t deserve this. “Come on. We can’t both be sad about this. I had…been looking forward to the future, but that’s what I get for making plans without talking to the person I was pinning my hopes on. But we’ll work it out.”

Another beat. Yuuri shakes his head. “Stop. Why are you being so nice to me? This _is_ all my fault.”

“How can it be? If you don’t want me to coach you, I…would never ask you to change.”

This doesn’t make sense. Yuuri looks down at the floor, and when the dark concrete offers no answers, he looks up at Victor. His fists clench and he almost bends double under the weight of the truth. “Victor, it’s not—of course—of _course_ I want you to coach me. That’s the _problem.”_

He _loves_ the idea of having Victor as his coach. He’s loved everything they’ve done together, every last moment they’ve pored over their skating on Skype. He loves it when Victor narrows his eyes as Yuuri skates and then tells him to switch it up, to try the step that Stephane Lambiel used in 2008 just before the loop. He loves connecting with Victor on and off the ice. Drunk Yuuri and Sober Yuuri both love the idea.

He’s so selfish. He _loves_ it, every remembered moment. He _loves_ that he made Victor give him so much.

But Victor’s tears have stopped. His forehead wrinkles. “I don’t understand. You _want_ me to coach you?”

“I said it, didn’t I?”

He lets out a ragged breath, because he knows that he asked for it, knows that he’s responsible.

“Then, sweetheart, I don’t see the problem. Tell me what’s wrong.”

The endearment almost breaks Yuuri. It feels so unearned, so deeply undeserved, that he feels nauseous to his core.

“It’s you,” he says. “ _I_ did this to you. _I_ made you into a coach. I asked you, and you did it, and—and Victor, I just—I know you won’t believe me, I don’t expect you to believe me. I don’t remember the treasure map. But I don’t want you to be the treasure. I never wanted _you_ to be the treasure. I just wanted _you.”_

“That was the point.” Victor frowns at him. “I _was_ the treasure. I was supposed to be the treasure.”

“No.” Yuuri reaches out wildly, takes hold of Victor’s hand. “I don’t want you to be the treasure! I just want you to be Victor.”

Victor looks even more confused. “I know, sweetheart. I know. It’s okay.” He glances down the hallway and cocks his head, listening to the faint strains of music from the rink. “It’s going to be okay. I’m not sure what’s wrong, Yuuri, but it’s going to be okay. We can talk about it after we skate. I don’t have to coach you, if you don’t want it.”

Another sob escapes Yuuri. “But you said. You said that if you weren’t coaching me, there was nothing to us.”

“ _I_ said that?” Victor squeezes Yuuri’s hand convulsively. “No, I didn’t. Of course I didn’t say that.”

“You said it about the treasure map—that there was no point in us being together without the treasure map.”

Victor freezes in place. He looks down at Yuuri, his eyes widening. “Oh.” He steps forward, wrapping an arm around Yuuri. “Oh. Is…that what this is about? Yuuri, you think that coaching you was on the treasure map?”

Yuuri hiccups, because crying always makes him hiccup, and because it’s ridiculous that Victor is so beautiful. “Wasn’t it? Isn’t that what happened? I told you that you had to coach me, help me with my skating, if you wanted to be with me?”

“Oh, Yuuri.” Victor’s voice is soft. “You thought _that?”_

“I ruin _everything.”_ Yuuri breaks again. “I didn’t know what love _was_ until you made me see it. I just wanted to love you as much as you loved me. That’s all I wanted. I didn’t want…” He waves his hands, indicating the entire world championship tournament, the audience, _everything_. “I didn’t want to be like _them,_ not seeing you at all. But that’s what I did.”

“Yuuri.” Victor folds his arms around Yuuri. “Listen to me. Breathe. That’s not what happened.”

“No?” Another hiccup. He tells himself he has to stop, and that just makes it worse.

“You asked me to coach you at the banquet—in front of everybody, when you were drunk off your ass and half-naked, about to pole-dance.”

“Shit, shit, shit.”

“Shhh.” Victor presses a kiss to his forehead. “It’s okay. I promise it’s okay. You gave me the treasure map in my room when I was trying to get you to take off your pants so you could sleep comfortably.”

Yuuri feels his breath come to a halt. “What?”

“Asking me to coach you? That wasn’t the treasure map. That was just a drunken invitation. And I wanted to do it so, so much.”

Yuuri’s heart gives a little thump. He’s afraid to hope, afraid to look at Victor, afraid to discover that maybe, maybe he didn’t fuck this up after all. “Was it? What…What was…”

He can’t ask. He wants to know, but he doesn’t. He wants to _hope,_ but he’s afraid.

“I was trying to get you to take your pants off so you could sleep comfortably,” Victor says. “And you looked over at me with the sexiest look in your eyes and you said, ‘Don’t be so hasty, Nikiforov. You’re not getting in my pants that easily.’”

“Oh, God.” Yuuri shrinks away from himself, from this reminder of his drunken arrogance. “What was I _thinking?”_

But Victor doesn’t let him go. He just holds him close, and a little smile plays across Victor’s face. “At that point, I had the biggest crush on you, Yuuri. I hadn’t felt that alive in years. I would have done anything you asked. So I asked you what you wanted me to be. Did you want me to be your friend? Your coach? Your father figure?”

“None of that,” Yuuri whispers.

Victor reaches out and sets his thumb against Yuuri’s lip. “I asked if you wanted me to be your lover.”

“What did I say?”

“You looked me in the eye and said, ‘Don’t smile like that.’”

“Like what?”

“Exactly what I asked you. You leaned in and you said, ‘Don’t smile like you do for them. Don’t smile like you don’t mean it.’”

Yuuri swallows.

“And you took my hand,” Victor says, “and you ran your finger up my arm until you got _here.”_ Victor demonstrates, pulling Yuuri’s hand over his own heart. “And you said, ‘I’ve been following this map all my life, trying to find the treasure buried where X marks the spot.’”

“You were the treasure.”

Victor nods. “I was the treasure.”

Yuuri exhales. His tears have taken the worst of his nerves away from him; now he doesn’t know what to think. “I don’t want you to be the treasure, Victor.”

“I’m not done.” Victor leans in. “You said, ‘I haven’t worked this long, this hard to get close to you just to have you pretend to be someone else. I want you to be yourself, Victor.’ That was it.”

“That… That was the treasure map?”

Victor smiles wanly. “ _Now_ do you understand why we’re nothing without the treasure map? I don’t even exist if there’s no treasure map.”

“Oh.”

“I wanted it,” Victor tells him. “I needed it. I needed you so, so much, Yuuri. I was going to quit everything because I didn’t know where I was anymore, and you reminded me that I still existed. That I mattered.”

Yuuri blinks. For a moment, he can’t say anything.

“That treasure map meant _everything_ to me,” Victor says.

He expected to hurt. He doesn’t understand this, now.

It doesn’t hurt so much that the absence of pain throbs. He lets out a long, shivering exhale. “I said that?”

“You said that. I had no idea who I was anymore, but you wanted to know.” Victor smiles again, and this time, there’s a glow to it. “When you said those words, I _needed_ to know. I didn’t know who Victor Nikiforov was. I didn’t know what was buried at the spot marked X. I’ve been working on finding out this whole time.”

“Oh.” Yuuri shuts his eyes. “But. You asked for my number. You asked for my schedule. You said all those things were on the treasure map.”

“Well, I had no idea who I was,” Victor says, “but I definitely _wanted_ your number, so…” He shrugs. “On the treasure map?”

Yuuri lets out a shaky breath and opens his eyes. “But. You said!” It comes out sounding almost accusing. “When you sent me your app. You said that was on the treasure map!”

“It was. Nobody even knew me anymore. I wanted you to.”

Yuuri’s eyes narrow a touch. “You woke me up at seven in the morning because of the treasure map.”

Victor just laughs. “You _did_ say to be myself. I haven’t always known who I am, but I’m pretty consistently annoying? There were times I wondered if I should lighten up, pretend more, not let you think I was—”

“No!” Yuuri’s eyes shoot open. “No, no, no. You’re the best Victor there is. Don’t you _dare._ I…it’s a lot to take in. I thought…when Celestino said it, I thought, it made sense, it fit with everything. I thought I told you to be my coach.”

“Yuuri,” Victor says softly, “if it made sense, it’s because you told me to be myself. I _want_ to be your coach. With all of my heart.”

“Oh.”

Victor leans in, setting his forehead against Yuuri’s. “I don’t know what you’re talking about with that whole ‘I learned what love was from you’ nonsense. I told you in Taipei that you’ve never made me feel that you wanted me for anything but myself, and I meant it. You couldn’t have learned what love was from me, because I learned it from you in the first place.”

“But—” Yuuri can’t look away from Victor’s eyes. They’re so open, so wide, and he doesn’t know how to understand this about himself.

Victor just smiles. “I love you the way I do because you started it first.”

Yuuri swallows. He shuts his eyes. They’re stinging, but for a different reason altogether. “You mean…” He gulps. “All of that—all the things you did. Sharing your app with me, going over jumps… It really wasn’t because I made you do it?”

Victor sighs. “Yuuri. Can you please look at my life for the last twenty years and just try, _try_ to imagine why I would need to be forced to talk about skating? What else would I talk about?”

“Um.” Pretty much…dogs. There isn’t anything else. But put like that… His worry seems stupid. So stupid. Why was he so stupid.

Victor kisses him on the forehead. “I want to be your coach. I want it because you’re utterly beautiful on the ice, because talking about skating with you has helped me find the love for skating that I thought had disappeared, and because the more time I spend with you the happier I am. I want to be your coach so, so much, because I’m me and you’re you. But no, Yuuri. You never, ever made me do it.”

“Oh.” Yuuri takes in a breath of air. “So…”

“You said you wanted me to know that you loved me for who I was, not what I could do for you. You have, every single day that we’ve been together. You have.”

The sounds of applause wash out over the hall. That’s… That’s Otabek finishing, now?

“Come on.” Victor steps away and threads his fingers through Yuuri’s hand. “We don’t have a lot of time. You have to be on the ice once Chris finishes.”

He runs by Yakov long enough to rescue a shoulder bag. Then Victor pulls Yuuri into the bathroom. He dumps the contents of his bag on the counter, rescues a little round washcloth, sprays it with something that Yuuri can’t identify, and then runs it under cold water. He presses this to the underside of Yuuri’s eyes.

“Takes the puffiness away,” Victor explains.

Yuuri watches him with wide eyes that are still puffy, even after the emergency facial.

Victor doesn’t remark on this. Instead, he rummages around through his bag and squints at a jar of cream. “Here, this will help, too.” He dabs at Yuuri’s face. The unguent is cooling against his skin, and Victor smooths it in with gentle strokes.

Yuuri inhales and looks down. The bathroom counter is strewn with Victor’s things—vials and bottles and fancy little glass jars.

“Victor, why do you have Japanese sunscreen? And…is that a Korean moisturizer?”

“My dermatologist says it’s the best.” Victor bites his lip, concentrating on Yuuri’s cheeks.

“Oh, well.” Yuuri gives him a watery smile. “ _My_ dermatologist says that Whamisa is overrated.”

Victor pauses and looks at the jar in his hands. “Really?” He frowns. “Why? That sucks. Where did they train? Do you think it’s a skin type issue?” Victor lets out a little gasp and his eyes widen. “Yuuri, we’ve been together three whole months! I can’t believe I don’t know your skin type!”

“Well, don’t take that too seriously. I’ve been with me for twenty-three years, and _I_ don’t even know my skin type.”

“I thought you said your dermatologist…”

“You can ask Phichit about it when you see him.”

“Oh.” Victor giggles and leans his forehead against Yuuri’s. “Phichit. I should have known. You scared me there.”

“Victor, you know how broke I am. How could I possibly have a dermatologist?”

“I know how beautiful you are,” Victor says in a low, sexy voice. “How could you possibly _not_ have one?”

Yuuri looks up at Victor, loving him so much. He has loved him more and better than he let himself believe.

“There.” Victor steps back, appraising his work.

Yuuri glances at himself in the mirror. His eyes are a little red, but the rest of his crying jag has been hidden. “Thank you.”

Victor just looks at him seriously. “Can you do something for me?”

“Sure.” Yuuri reaches for the cream that Victor used. “Hold still. Although, it’s not like you need it. You’re the most ridiculously beautiful cryer I’ve ever seen.”

“I—not that, that’s not what I meant.”

Yuuri unscrews the jar and goes up onto the tips of his skate guards. Victor shuts his eyes and lets him.

He mostly lets him.

“Um. Not like that.” Victor gestures blindly. “ _Dab,_ don’t _pat._ ”

Yuuri has no idea what the difference is between dabbing and patting, but he changes the patterns his fingers make against Victor’s skin in some way, and Victor stops correcting him.

“What else was it you wanted? You have to know I’ll do anything.”

“I want you to skate,” Victor says on a whisper.

Yuuri rocks back to the floor, and Victor opens his eyes.

“Go out there and skate with everything you have. Skate the way I know you can. Show them who you are, Yuuri. Show them how lucky I am to have you. Skate.”

#

Yuuri makes it to the edge of the rink thirty seconds before Chris finishes. Victor comes with him, holding his hand.

“Is everything okay?” Celestino asks. He and Yakov have been holding back from the two of them, hovering outside the bathroom door, then giving them a few meters distance on the way to the rink. “I didn’t mean to upset you.”

Victor gives Celestino a look through his fringe. Yuuri doesn’t know when he became an expert in Victor’s looks, but Victor’s hand tightens around Yuuri’s, and Yuuri knows exactly what he’s thinking. Victor is annoyed with Celestino, to say the least.

Yuuri squeezes Victor’s hand back. “It’s fine,” he says. “I’m fine. I’m more than fine.”

He’s not lying, he realizes. Nothing makes sense anymore. He still doesn’t understand how he feels—warm and confused, drained and yet so, so full.

He’s a mess—Yuuri knows this—because what kind of awkward, impossible jerk makes his four-time world champion boyfriend cry minutes before he has to skate to defend his faith world championship?

But Victor looks at Yuuri as he takes off his glasses, and Victor doesn’t just smile, he blooms.

 _I love you,_ Yuuri remembers him saying. _I will love this part of you, too._

Victor loves him, but it isn’t enough. There’s one thing more, one thing missing. Yuuri can feel that missing piece in the warmth of his heart, in the calm of his breath.

He steps on the ice, pulling off his skate guards as he does. The crowd cheers, a pulse of applause so warm, so _accepting,_ that it’s hard to believe it’s for him. He _is_ Japanese, yes, and they’re in his home country, and…

And it’s there again, that feeling, just at the edge of his awareness.

Victor holds out one hand, and Yuuri almost hands him his skate guards. He realizes at the last possible instant that Victor has to skate immediately after him; he can’t give him his guards.

Yuuri waves them in Celestino’s direction and takes Victor’s hand in his own instead.

“Go,” Victor whispers, as if there’s nothing to forgive in the last ten minutes. “Show them.”

He releases Victor’s hand and skates to center ice, taking his opening position. His breath seems even, rooted deep within him. It is probably the calmest Yuuri has ever felt before a competition.

His theme this season is completion, and this is the last time he’s ever going to skate to it. When he had chosen it, he’d thought of all the seasons before—the seasons where he’d flubbed a jump at the wrong time, or how he’d missed qualifying for the Grand Prix final by two stupid points. He’d thought about every way that he’d failed.

Choosing this theme had been his way of promising himself that this year, he would be good enough.

The first notes sound, and Yuuri moves, gliding in a graceful arc. Triple axel, single loop, triple flip. Completion.

It had seemed like an arrogant, impossible theme, considering the circumstances. But he’d needed something to push him. He’s always felt like he had to do better. Nothing he did was ever right—not his skating, not his personality, not his career. He’s even been telling himself that he didn’t love Victor right. No matter what he has done, he’s only ever seen mistakes, mistakes, nothing but mistakes.

He lines up for what his registered program claims should be a triple loop. He knows going in that he has it—the position, the exact angle on the outside edge of his skate. The air around him feels like it’s vaulting him forward. He flies in the air without hesitation, buoyed by the gasp of the crowd, his own desire to win, the dizzying whirl of each rotation.

His skate hits the ice, and Yuuri becomes the second person to land a quad loop in competition. The noise of the audience surges over his music.

Mistakes. It hits him with a sudden clarity that his biggest mistake has been not trusting himself. Thinking that he didn’t know how to love; thinking that he was never good enough. He arches his whole body into his layback spin, and lets go of the idea that _complete_ means _perfect._

He let himself believe that every little misstep he made was a hole carved out of his soul, a flag of shame to carry with him.

He’s carried a lot of those flags. He _still_ doesn’t understand how Victor can love all of him, but he feels on the cusp of that understanding. The final Ina Bauer of his choreographic sequence runs flawlessly into his quad Salchow.

 _Maybe,_ Yuuri thinks, _maybe the person I am—anxious, determined, ambitious, flawed—maybe I have always been enough. Maybe Victor can love me exactly as I am because I am complete, just like this._

He’s close, so close. He can almost taste it.

He puts all of his love for Victor into his step sequence—the night in Taipei when they took each other part, again and again. Their morning runs. The shared dog folder. He’s not feeling tired, even though he’s more than halfway through his program. He hits his quad toe, double toe loop without a wobble.

It always feels impossible that people would love Yuuri, but it’s impossible that they wouldn’t.

He thinks of Mari, her understated humor, the way she’s supported him at every competition she can afford to go to. Of his mother and the public viewings she organizes and then carefully doesn’t tell him about until after they’re over because she knows he finds it embarrassing.

He thinks of all the people who love him, who have _always_ loved him, through losses and wins alike, and it’s time for his quad flip at the end. He launches into the air. For a second, it feels as if he almost hangs in place, caught by the crowd’s expectations.

Then his body absorbs the shock of landing. His arm holds steady, balancing, and he’s done it, he’s landed all his jumps.

There’s one final sit spin before he’s finished. He can feel himself rotating fast, faster, until the world blurs into nothing.

His theme for the season is completion, and he yearned to make it true, competition by competition. Even when he’d won, the program never felt quite right.

He stands, rising toward the ceiling, throwing his arms up. Until now, he’d always felt like he was reaching—reaching up, reaching for the unattainable. This time, he can almost feel it against his fingers—so close, but missing one last thing, something he can’t find in the choreography or the execution.

He’s gulping air.

He’s done.

He’s finished.

He can’t identify a single flaw. The program was as good as he could possibly make it, but it’s still not the completion he was hoping for.

He turns on the ice, bows to the audience.

There are people who have watched him since he was first skating. Minako. His family, his entire town, at home in Hasetsu, glued to the television and cheering him on. There are people he has never met in his life who are throwing bouquets on the ice.

Someone he doesn’t know throws an onigiri plushie—which means they saw that one interview he did two years ago confessing that the thing he misses most about not living Japan was being able to get onigiri in the convenience store after a long skate. Someone he didn’t know saw it, and cared about him long enough to remember it now.

He skates over and picks it up, holding it in the air and waving it. Victor’s on the ice, warming up; he skates near Yuuri as Yuuri exits.

“Beautiful,” he says. “Absolutely beautiful.”

Yuuri just smiles. “Get out there and show me your fifth quad.”

He stumbles into the Kiss and Cry; his skateguards go on, and Celestino hands him his glasses. The world comes back into sharp focus.

“Yuuri, that was amazing.” Celestino gives him a boisterous hug. “The talent… The degree of difficulty… I’m so impressed.”

Yuuri has never been a big hugger, but Celestino is. Yuuri pulls him into a rough embrace.“Thank you,” he says, the words muffled by Celestino’s massive frame. “Thank you for everything.”

“I’m not sure how much of it is due to me.” Celestino’s voice is dry.

“A lot.” Yuuri shuts his eyes, and doesn’t tell Celestino that he brought him far enough for Victor to find him. “A lot.”

A short eternity passes, watching Victor warm up, trying not to look at himself on the screen overhead. It passes in a flash.

“The scores, please.”

Yuuri can see Victor come to a standstill on the ice.

“Yuuri Katsuki has scored two hundred and twenty four point five nine points in his free skate,” the announcer says, and Yuuri’s heart just about stops. No, no. He can’t possibly have. He—

He beat—

His mind is not working. He can’t quite understand. That, it can’t be, it’s not _possible._ That’s better than—

“This is a personal best for him,” the announcer continues, “and a new world record.”

The announcer repeats this in English. Victor, half a rink away, raises both his arms in a victory pose. The rink camera zooms in on him; his smile is so brilliant, Yuuri fears he’ll melt the ice.

How. He cannot fathom how it has happened. “ _How,”_ he whispers to himself.

“Well,” Celestino says dryly, sitting next to him. “I suspect it has something to do with working your behind off for a decade or so. But what do I know, I’ve just been coaching for twenty-seven years.”

_“How.”_

The cameras are focusing on Victor now.

“Yuuri.” Celestino taps his arm. “We should get out of the Kiss and Cry.”

“Oh.” Yuuri shrugs nonchalantly. “You go. I’m waiting for someone.”

As badly as Yuuri has wanted to win, he wants Victor to beat him, too. He wants Victor to skate his very, very best. He wants to watch him perform like he’s never performed before.

Victor takes his pose in the center of the ice. Yuuri knows every inch of this routine; he’s practiced it at night far too often not to. He knows it down to the flow of every last finger.

When Victor skates, it’s the most beautiful thing he’s ever seen. Victor’s beautiful even when he misses a jump—and at this point of going over footage together, he’s seen him miss his share of jumps, including hilariously, a double toe loop where he tripped over his own skate because he wasn’t paying attention.

Yuuri’s seen him run through his program dozens of times by now, with four quads and five. He’s never seen him land five quads cleanly. If he’s attempting it, Yuuri will know in the first ten seconds. He’ll know when—

There. Victor launches off the ice in an absolutely perfect quad loop. It wasn’t registered; to everyone else, this has to come as a complete surprise.

Yuuri hopes the crowd is screaming, because if they aren’t, he’s the only one, and that’s going to look really embarrassing on the replays.

Victor’s quad flip comes next—he lands it perfectly. Yes, Yuuri landed both those jumps in his program. But he’s never looked so radiant, so _beautiful,_ while doing it.

Yakov comes and sits next to him. Yuuri feels his throat dry—oh, god, he’s intimidating this close—but he just grunts and glances once at Yuuri invading his skater’s Kiss and Cry, then sighs.

“I will have to get used to this, I suppose,” he mutters. “Only Vitya. Only Vitya.”

“He is pretty amazing,” Yuuri breathes.

“ _Not_ what I meant.” Yakov grunts. “You’re worse than he is.”

Yuuri knows he’s not as good a skater as Victor, and so he accepts this with a shrug.

He can feel Yakov tense as Victor approaches his quad lutz, his fist clenching on his thigh. “Come on, Vitya…!”

“He’s never flubbed this on his run throughs,” Yuuri says reassuringly.

Yakov just shakes his head. “I can’t believe you idiots share your footage of run throughs. Whatever happened to the spirit of competition?”

It’s almost like Victor floats the landing on his Lutz, it’s so perfect. Yuuri punches his first in the air.

As he does, someone comes and sits between Yuuri and Yakov. “He’s trying for five quads, isn’t he?” she says dryly.

Yuuri doesn’t bother to look over at Vasilisa. He knows what she looks like, and even if he wanted to, he would never be able to look away from Victor. But he can see Yakov turn to stare at her out of the corner of his eye.

“He didn’t have much choice,” Yakov says dryly.

“I didn’t see the whole program—you would not believe how terrible the traffic was from Narita. I didn’t think I would get here on time. But didn’t Yuuri here only land four?”

“But his loop, flip, and Salchow were in the back half of his program,” Yakov growls. “Vitya can’t do that.”

Yuuri tilts his head in confusion.

“Trust me, Victor tried. He’s only ever managed the five quads with the Salchow and the toe loop in the second half, and even then, he touched down on the Salchow.”

Vasilisa sighs. “Is he still doing the thing where he won’t skate it unless it’s perfect?”

Yuuri and Yakov both answer at once. “Yes.”

Vasilisa sighs. “God, what a dweeb. I can’t believe he’s related to me.”

Victor lands his quad Salchow; the audience goes wild.

“Fine,” Vasilisa says. “That was beautiful, little brother. I guess I can believe you’re related to me after all.”

The triple axle, triple loop combo has Yuuri clutching his heart. It’s gorgeous, so gorgeous, but there’s a slight tremor to Victor’s hand, usually so steady.

“Hold in, Victor,” he hears himself muttering. “You can do it.”

Victor’s getting tired. Yuuri doesn’t know if anyone else in the stadium that isn’t sitting on this bench can see it. But Yuuri recognizes it in the little flourish at the end of his fingers, ever so slightly less open. He can see it in his spin, slightly dampened by his exertion.

Yuuri holds his breath as Victor sets up for his final jump. Land it, he begs Victor. Land it. Land it and beat me.

Victor flies in the air.

Yuuri has one second to see that it’s a flip, not a loop—that it’s a triple, not a quad—before Victor completes the combination with a triple toe-loop.

“Shit.” Yakov exhales.

“Downgraded it.” Vasilisa sighs beside Yuuri. “He is such a little _shit_ like that. Blah blah blah something something ‘his image’ blah blah blah ‘landing all my jumps’ blah blah blah. Sometimes you go for the jump knowing you’re going to fuck it up. You don’t know how many times I have yelled at him about that.”

“Not as many times as I’ve done it,” Yakov growls. “He’s so good that he never lets himself think about strategy, and it always gets him.”

“By always, you mean…the zero times he’s lost in the last four years?” Yuuri asks.

Yakov makes a dismissive noise.

Yuuri thinks about the pressure on Victor’s shoulders—the fact that he’s Russia’s hero, that he feels all the pressure of being the face of Russia’s skating program renaissance after a generation of nothing, that he feels he’s not even allowed to be human, not even allowed to miss _jumps_ —and his fists curl.

“I think his strategy is being perfect in the first place.” And it’s not so much a strategy as a necessity.

“That’s stupidity,” Yakov tells him, “not strategy. If Victor were any less good, he’d be terrible.”

Vasalisa exhales, tracking Victor moving into his final spin. “Five years since I’ve come to his competitions, and he’s still doing the same stupid shit.”

“I happen to love his stupid shit,” Yuuri says stiffly.

“You should. It may have just gotten you gold.”

The roar of the crowd signifies the end of Victor’s routine. Yuuri is on his feet, applauding and screaming. Yes, Victor didn’t land five quads. But it was still perfect, still utterly _incredible._ He landed four of the hardest quads perfectly—and that was without utilizing the quad toe. And yes, Yuuri’s back-half scheduling gives him a technical advantage, but he still _feels_ it.

 _Yuuri’s_ program wasn’t perfect, but this… This was amazing.

Yuuri shakes his head. “His PCS will be higher than mine.”

“If it is, it’s because he’s overscored.” Yakov sighs and stretches to his feet.

“With all due respect” Yuuri says, as politely as he can with the topic of Victor on the line, “he was utterly beautiful and you couldn’t be more wrong.”

Yakov just grunts. “You two idiots deserve each other.”

On the ice, Victor sweeps a bow to the crowd. He stops and picks up a little poodle plushie, which he hugs to his chest. Then he turns to the Kiss and Cry, and the smile on his face falters. He runs a hand over his face, rubbing his eyes as if he doesn’t believe what he sees.

The camera zooms in on the people waiting for him at the exit, and the audience sees—for the first time—who is waiting for him there.

Yakov, they expect.

Yuuri is a bit of a surprise, but after the year they’ve had, and the announcements they’ve seen… Well, he’s probably not _much_ of a surprise. Vasilisa…

They don’t all know the story with his sister, Yuuri supposes, but there are thousands of people here who are Victor-fans. Possibly, one of them has written five plus one fics about Victor and his sister.

The gasps are audible, then the loud noise of a thousand murmurs.

From half a rink away, Yuuri sees Victor press his hand to his mouth, his eyes going wide, and then he’s skating across the ice with long, impossible strokes, pushing forward, forward, faster, faster, until he practically careens into the boards at the end.

“Vasya? Vasya? What are you doing here?”

His sister folds her arms over her chest. “Seriously, Victor, what was with that triple flip-triple toe loop at the end? You didn’t think you could land the quad toe? Honestly, how many times do I have to tell you—”

“She means,” Yuuri says dryly, coming up behind him, “that she’s sorry and she misses you.”

“Aw.” Victor scrambles off the ice and throws his arms around his sister. “That’s so sweet. I thought Isabella needed to work on her axel at Juniors, too.”

He holds her for a little too long.

Yakov, standing behind them, just shakes his head. “Victor, your sister isn’t wrong. If you had actually _tried_ the quad—”

“And fallen,” Victor says, “and missed the combination altogether, it would have been _worse_ than if I downgraded.”

“But—”

“I wouldn’t have made it.” Victor shrugs. “I’m about ready to fall on my face right now.”

“But—”

Victor reaches out and rubs Yakov’s forehead, which causes Yakov to jerk away and grunt, hiding a smile.

Victor smiles brilliantly and takes Yuuri’s hand. “Come on, Yakov. Let’s go to the Kiss and Cry.”

“You know,” Yuuri says when they’re safely settled in, as the highlight reel of Victor’s program plays on the massive screens overhead, safely capturing the audience’s attention, “I can’t count how many times I’ve cried in the Kiss and Cry. But I’ve never been—”

Victor’s lips cut him off before he can even finish the hint. His arms go around Yuuri, and oh, god, they’re in public, and—and he doesn’t care, wants everyone to know that Victor is _his,_ that they’re each other’s.

Victor pulls away just as the announcer asks for the scores. Their hands clasp together, fingers squeezing, and Yuuri doesn’t know what he wants. He wants to win. He wants Victor to win.

He wanted to skate on the same ice as Victor, as an equal, and he has. He’s beaten Victor’s world record, something that still seems like it didn’t actually happen. Surely Victor will steal it right back.

They announce the scores in Japanese first.

“Two thirteen point seventy eight,” he translates breathlessly before the announcer says it in English, and then, as he tries to do rapid math in his head—

Wait. He scored higher than Victor in the free? But. But—

He doesn’t have any time to understand this, because the total scores are announced, and Victor is in first—just barely.

There is no sense of loss, not a hint of jealousy. Yuuri throws his arms around Victor and holds him tight. “Congratulations. God, you’re so beautiful.”

“Next season.” Victor pulls away, so Yuuri can see the smile on his face. “Next season, I’m going to land that fifth quad. Just watch.”

“Yeah, you will.” Yuuri can’t stop himself from smiling. “I know you will.”

“Next season, I’m going to take back my world record, and you know what?”

“What?” Yuuri leans in as Victor’s voice drops.

“It won’t matter,” Victor whispers. “Because you’re going to beat me anyway. As your coach I won’t accept anything less.”

They haven’t talked about it, not really. Yuuri wants to explain it, to tell Victor that there was something almost not quite right with his program, that he just needs a moment to figure it out so he can do it better next time.

But this isn’t the place. “As your student, I won’t give you anything else. I promise.”

#

Yuuri doesn’t realize what’s happening at the medal ceremony until he glances at the screens over head. Victor is standing on the pedestal above him, looking down at him. He doesn’t watch the medal or the audience or the official who’s placing the awards around their necks, or even the people handing out bouquets. His gaze is trained on Yuuri and Yuuri alone, a small smile on his face.

Yuuri turns away from the jumbotron and looks up.

Victor is still watching him. Yuuri can see the two of them out of the corner of his eye on the screen, Victor’s blush painted big and bright pink for the world to see.

“Um. Hi.” Yuuri can’t manage more than a whisper. He can feel his own flush heat his face, but he can’t look away.

Victor reaches down and pulls Yuuri to stand on the top podium next to him. His arm snakes around him.

“Hi back.”

Yuuri’s heart is pounding. They’re in public, and Victor, Victor…

Victor turns to the other side and pulls Otabek Altin, the skater who came out of nowhere to win bronze, to stand beside them. The crowd cheers.

Victor waves, his arm around Yuuri, and the noise redoubles.

Then Victor dips his head and—there, oh, there, Yuuri isn’t sure if the roar in his head is from the audience or if it’s his own mind—they’re kissing, Victor’s arm wrapped firmly around Yuuri, pulling him close, so close that their skateguards knock and their medals tangle together and they’re in public, they’re in public, and Yuuri doesn’t care if everyone knows.

He wants them to know everything.

Victor pulls away and glances at Otabek, who is standing as far as he can from them, scrunched up against the edge of the podium.

Otabek’s eyes widen and he straightens stiffly. “Um…”

Yuuri finds himself giggling. Victor offers him a hand to shake, and Otabek looks visibly relieved. There are handshakes all around, Otabek, Victor, then Victor and Yuuri.

Except when Victor takes hold of Yuuri’s hand, he forgets to let go—or maybe Yuuri forgets to take his hand away. They skate off the ice together, fingers squeezing together, leaning on each other as they fasten their skateguards, smiling every time their eyes meet.

It still wasn’t right, Yuuri wants to tell him. He broke a world record, and how could he have done that when he was so close to right that he could taste it, but it wasn’t right?

They haven’t managed to release each other by the time the interviews start.

The first few interviewers don’t comment on them holding hands under the table. They ask about the program and Victor’s fifth quad—“I really was hoping to manage a fifth,” Victor says, “but I didn’t think my stamina was up for it”—and whether he thinks he deserved to win after Yuuri broke his world record.

“Yes,” Yuuri interrupts, even though the question was directed at Victor. “Of course he deserved it! First, while this is the first time the loop has been landed in competition, I’m sure if you compared footage, you’d see that Victor had better height than Seung Gil or me. Second, let’s talk about the quad flip, Victor’s _signature move,_ if you don’t remember. When he—”

Victor squeezes his hand and Yuuri realizes abruptly that he just interrupted the five-time champion on international TV. He shuts his mouth and feels himself turn intensely red. “Next question.”

“So, Victor,” a reporter asks. “What are your plans for next season?”

Victor shrugs nonchalantly. “Oh,” he says, “that’s easy. We’ll get married after Yuuri wins gold.”

There’s a beat. A gasp. Yuuri realizes a second later that the gasp came from him. His heart is pounding in his chest; he looks over at Victor, who still hasn’t relinquished his hand under the table, to see a small smile on his face.

“Victor.” Yuuri exhales.

“Against me,” Victor clarifies. “He’s going to win gold competing against me next year. I won’t give him an easy time, either.”

“ _Victor.”_

Victor just looks over at him and traces a line up his palm. “I’ve always wanted a spring wedding.”

“Yuuri?” Morooko looks a little stunned. “Um. Do you…have something to say about your plans for the next…season?”

Yuuri can feel himself blushing. “Well.” He gathers his courage. “It _is_ traditional to perform impossible labors to win the hand of a legendary beauty. If that’s what he wants… I suppose…” His cheeks must be so red; he can’t imagine how he must look to the television audience. Oh, great. His mom is probably still having the most confused public viewing in the history of the onsen.

Nothing to do about it now. “I guess we’ll need a spring wedding?”

Victor raises Yuuri’s hand and kisses his knuckles.

“Next question?” he asks innocently.

The reporters don’t ask Yuuri what he could do to improve his program—good, since he doesn’t quite know. He’s thankful for the innate Japanese politeness. The interview ends with Yuuri more confused then ever.

#

He and Victor don’t let go of each other in the changing room, not even to take off their skates—fingertips trailing against each other’s thighs, ankles hooked together, hands on hips. It should be uncomfortable, but it’s not.

Touch substitutes for talk on the way back. Their arms hook around each other, Victor’s arm on Yuuri’s shoulders, Yuuri’s arm around Victor’s waist, on the way back to the hotel.

They do speak—about dogs. About Otabek’s free skate. They talk about everything except the future, as if Yuuri’s meltdown never happened, as if Victor hadn’t said he wanted to coach Yuuri, as if Yuuri hadn’t dumped a sea’s worth of tears into their day, as if Victor hadn’t just casually announced that they were getting _married_ when Yuuri wins gold.

He would think that it was Victor’s way of saying that marriage was impossible, except… It’s Victor, and he’s pretty sure that he would never say that. Is Victor coaching him? How will that work? Are they engaged?

Beneath it all, Yuuri still has to think of the treasure map that he didn’t mess up—of telling Victor to be himself—of that realization that maybe he didn’t need a skating program to prove that he was complete…

They dump their gear in Victor’s room.

“We should talk,” Victor says.

Yuuri doesn’t know how to apologize. It’s easy to say he’s sorry for messing everything up; he’s used to that. He doesn’t know how to apologize when the only thing he has to apologize for is apparently not messing anything up at all.

Yuuri sits clumsily on the bed. “I just want to give you everything.” His eyes sting a little and he inhales, searching for words.

“That’s rough.” Victor sits next to him, cuddling up against him. He’s so warm and so soft. “Turns out, you can’t give me everything again because you’ve already done it once.”

Yuuri turns to see Victor smiling at him.

“But you gave it back,” he tries to explain. It’s like his free skate—without error and still not complete. “You gave me back everything I ever gave you, better and newer than I could ever have imagined.”

Victor contemplates him. “You said in Taipei that you felt like you were showing me around an undiscovered country. That you wanted to show me the good parts so I’d want to stay.”

Yuuri nods.

“I don’t think I understand.” Victor winds his arms around Yuuri, pulling them both back to lie prone on the bed. “So tell me. Tell me about the country of Katsuki Yuuri. Tell me about it all. Take me to the dark places, and let me know everything.”

Yuuri shuts his eyes. He can feel Victor’s breath on his cheek, his lips pressing against his neck briefly.

“Me,” he says thickly. “I’m…one of the dime a dozen skaters certified by the JSF.”

Victor twitches beside him but doesn’t interrupt.

“I don’t know why you love me. I’m such a mess.” He says this almost reflexively.

“Don’t you?” Victor asks, and Yuuri does know. He knows it the way he’s always known the things he most wants—deep in his heart, hidden in the expanse of his chest. It doesn’t feel so hidden now.

He knows it. He _knows_ it. It almost hurts to have this knowledge, and most days, he doesn’t even try.

He tries now. “You said you wanted to visit the country of Katsuki Yuuri. I have to warn you, the terrain may be interesting, but the climate leaves something to be desired.”

Victor just shakes his head. “You can’t separate the landscape from the weather. You won’t find rainforests in the desert.”

“Rain.” Yuuri scoffs. “I’m not just _rain.”_

Yuuri exhales and thinks of the typhoon of his anxiety, the winds that buffet him.

Here is one truth: Yuuri has dreamed of completion all his skating career. Here is another: Yuuri broke Victor’s long-standing world record with a flawless skate, and he still doesn’t think he’s enough.

Here is one truth: Yuuri has spent the last four months convincing himself that he’ll never really deserve Victor. Here is another: Unless he is completely wrong, he has given Victor exactly what he needed, when he most needed it.

When Yuuri lived in Detroit, he heard barely believable stories about tornadoes so powerful that they could punch cornstalks through barn walls.

That’s his anxiety: a wind so strong it can turn world-breaking skates and quad flips into knives. Even knowing that Victor loved him turned into another way that he wasn’t good enough.

Now, in the aftermath of his free skate, the wind has scored him, stripping him down to rock.

He’s still here, with a new world record and a silver medal and a boyfriend who wants to marry him.

He’s both the storm and the sea. No matter how fierce the gale, he’s always been waiting, catching the winds as he can, picking himself up and forging on.

His theme this year is completion, but completion has never meant flawlessness. “I’m Yuuri Katsuki,” he says again, “and I’m—” He’s so many things. “I’m arrogant. I’m anxious. I’m determined.”

He knows what’s wrong with his free skate now, knows why it didn’t feel right, knows why he never felt worthy. There was nothing wrong with his skate; it was his measurement that was at fault.

He pushes up on his elbows, catching Victor in a hot kiss.

For an instant, Victor’s eyes widen. Then he exhales, melting into Yuuri, and they trade kisses back and forth until he can scarcely breathe.

“I love you,” Yuuri says, but loving Victor has never been the problem. Loving Victor has been impossibly easy, the easiest part of this, and it’s not what he needs. He says it anyway because it’s easier than the truth he has to admit. “I love you.”

“I love you, too.”

They struggle out of their clothing—Victor’s track jacket is tossed on the floor, then his shirt. Yuuri kisses his way down Victor’s throat, feeling Victor’s unsteady exhalation vibrate against his lips.

“I love you,” Yuuri says. “I love that you want to be my coach.”

His tongue finds Victor’s nipple; under his hands, Victor tenses, moaning, and Yuuri keeps going.

“I love how beautiful you are on the ice, how sweet you are off it. I love what a dork you are about dogs. I love that you’ll try anything.”

“God, Yuuri, yes.” Victor pulls off his pants, and Yuuri palms him through his underwear, the hardening length of him.

“I love that you have an app.”

Victor is wrestling Yuuri out of his clothes, too—Yuuri pulls his hands away from Victor reluctantly, and as soon as he’s free he goes back to him.

“I love that you reached out for help,” Yuuri says, “that you’ve been working so hard to be yourself.”

They’re naked now, and Victor clings to Yuuri with as much desperation as Yuuri feels.

“I love you,” Yuuri says. “Do you?”

There. That’s close, so close to the truth.

Victor tips Yuuri’s head back, and they’re kissing again. Yuuri gives himself over to the man he loves, feeling his gasp, his growl, the tension in him, growing, growing.

“Of _course_ I love you.”

Victor pulls away momentarily—just long enough to rescue the tube of lube from the nightstand—and then they’re touching each other, their hands clasping around their cocks, stroking in tandem. Yuuri could give himself over to this, could let himself go without crossing that last final distance, but he can’t, he _can’t._

He stops. They’re pressed against each other, chest to chest, lips so close, Victor’s blue eyes boring into him.

“No.” Yuuri can’t look away. It’s easier if he does this first, with Victor. He can make himself do it for Victor. “No, I wasn’t asking if you loved me. I know you love me. I wanted you to see yourself through my eyes. I was asking if you could let yourself love _you_ the way I do.”

Victor exhales and shudders in Yuuri’s embrace. “Oh.” His voice is small.

“Go on.”

“ _Oh.”_

“My wonderful Victor.” Yuuri’s hand strokes down. “My perfect Victor.” He presses forward, brushing their lips together. “Are you the treasure you’ve been searching for?”

“ _Yes.”_ He can feel the moment Victor lets go, can hear it in his moaning release, can feel the warmth of his seed filling their hands. “Yes,” Victor says, gasping. “Yes.”

Yuuri comes an instant later. It’s good, it’s so good. He can’t think—he almost can let go.

He opens his eyes to see Victor looking at him, a small smile on his face.

“I love you,” Victor says, and yes, yes, that’s the problem, that’s the point that Yuuri has been resisting all along. Not that he can love Victor; not even that Victor can love him.

He shuts his eyes and digs deep in himself. He’s tried so hard, so long, to meet Victor on his own terms. But everything he just said to Victor applies to himself, too.

 _I love you,_ he remembers Victor saying. _I can love this part of you, too._ He can feel his eyes stinging again. It’s the stupidest thing he could possibly say, but his heart feels so full that there’s room in it. Even for himself.

Beneath the typhoon of his anxiety, there’s steel and strength and a sea that’s always there, no matter how rough the waves. And there’s land ahead—a country undiscovered and yet intimately familiar. There’s _Yuuri,_ waiting, refusing to give up, no matter what has happened.

He shouldn’t need to say it. It can just be, can’t it?

But words have a power when spoken, and he speaks them now: “I love me.”

It’s stupid, so, so stupid, that allowing himself to believe this, allowing himself to love all of him, the awkward parts and the beautiful parts alike…this has been harder than winning Four Continents and breaking a world record.

Victor laughs, tears welling up. He pulls Yuuri close and pushes his head against his shoulder. “I love me, too. Thank you.”

It’s funny. Back in the hotel room at the Grand Prix Final, Victor marked an X over Yuuri’s chest and told him that he’d given him a treasure map. They’ve followed that path, let it take them across the world, to Taipei and back to Japan.

In the end, the territory Yuuri’s been waiting to find was himself.

Now that he’s arrived, he’s realized that he’s been here all along.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You'll notice the chapter count went up by one. I broke off the last 3K or so as a short epilogue--you'll get the exhibition skates, Hasetsu, and a short bit about dogs, because we haven't quite finished with dogs.
> 
> Before I get to cleaning that up and posting it, I need to catch up on comments because my AO3 inbox is screaming at me.
> 
> Possibly I should eat food for the first time today? And, like, put on pants? I dunno, standards are high in the shysweetthing household today.


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Exhibition skates. Hasetsu. Dogs.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So. It’s done, finally. I’m sorry for the, um, many month gap between the last chapter and this epilogue-like thing. Thank you all for going on this journey with me, and here you go.

It doesn’t feel strange for Yuuri to wake up with Victor’s arm slung around him. The warmth is new and unfamiliar, but it fits him like a new prescription for glasses: after months of fuzziness, the world has finally popped into sharp relief. Victor here with Yuuri makes so much sense that he doesn’t know how anything made sense before…this.

It makes so much sense that Yuuri’s grateful he’ll have this a little while longer. They have a few weeks together, at least, then…

Then what? They’ve scarcely had a chance to talk about the future.

He doesn’t want to think about how the world will feel without _this,_ the feel of Victor’s even breaths marking a soft rhythm in the space around them. Not yet.

It’s luxurious to feel Victor’s skin against his fingertips. Yuuri can smell the citrus-sweetness of his shampoo. He can almost taste their late-night kisses lingering on his tongue. He knows that Victor is here with all his senses.

It feels strange not to doubt his joy.

“You’re awake,” Victor whispers.

“Mmmm.” Yuuri’s own voice sounds sleep-strained, his throat still dry.

“I’ve been watching you for half an hour.” Victor snuggles closer, which Yuuri wouldn’t have thought possible, until Victor’s arm wraps around him, pressing them together. “I could tell when you woke up because you stopped moving. When you sleep, you cuddle up to me. And you make these little noises…”

“Oh, no.” Yuuri squishes his face into his pillow.

“Adorable noises,” Victor clarifies. Yuuri can hear the smile in his voice.

He lifts his head to the beautiful blur that is Victor Nikiforov.

“Okay,” Yuuri says, “but counterpoint: You’re mine.”

It feels so strange, so good, to say that out loud.

The blur that is Victor Nikiforov shades slightly pink. “I’m yours. All yours.”

Yuuri won’t let himself worry about whatever physical separation will come, not when he can enjoy this moment.

“At today’s exhibition skate,” Yuuri hears himself say, “promise that you won’t take your eyes off me.”

Victor leans in and touches his forehead to Yuuri’s. “I promise.”

#

Before open practice for the gala, though, there’s a photoshoot. Victor goes through Yuuri’s wardrobe, muttering to himself. He makes a scandalized noise when Yuuri suggests wearing his suit—“Yuuri, it’s not even _tailored,_ how are you supposed to show off your body like that?”—before settling on slim-fit jeans and a white T-shirt.

“Take your skates,” Victor says, and Yuuri does, even though it seems ridiculous to schlep them along just for show.

The make-up artist spends a full twenty minutes painting Yuuri’s face, before telling him not to move, leaving, returning with a bucket of water and then—entirely without warning—dousing his torso.

“What?” Yuuri looks down in confusion at the clinging fabric. “Why would you—”

Victor receives the same treatment in short order, and Yuuri’s throat dries. Oh. _That’s_ why. The water lends just a touch of translucence—enough to hint at the V of muscles disappearing into the low rise of Victor’s jeans.

“Come here,” Victor says, and Yuuri standss without hesitation.

He’s vaguely aware that there’s a photographer in the room where Victor leads him. Occasionally, he even has to notice her presence, when she says things like, “Yuuri, look over at the lamp,” but why would he pay attention to _her_ when he could watch Victor instead?

She gives up on directing either of them after Yuuri blinks dazedly the fourth time, and lets them guide each other, intervening only when they go from light touches to…more.

Victor gets on his knees to take Yuuri’s shoes off, and then moves to put Yuuri’s skates on.

“Victor, this doesn’t make any sense. Why would I skate with a wet T-shirt? I would freeze to death.”

Victor doesn’t say anything; he just hums low, under his breath. The look he gives Yuuri as he trails the tips of his fingers up the fine bones of Yuuri’s feet is so obscene that Yuuri forgets all his objections, forgets reality, forgets everything but Victor’s hands on him, Victor sliding his fingers up his calf, Victor resting his palm on Yuuri’s thigh and leaning forward…

There is no way that they’d make a poster of that, of Yuuri pink and wanting, of Victor an inch from the zipper of his jeans with that _look_ in his eyes. Prior Yuuri would have eaten nothing but rice for a month to raise the money to buy _those_ prints. The photos would be banned on sight.

It’s done too soon—or maybe too late. He’s been here with Victor, touching him, and being touched by him, for a full hour. He wants Victor with a full body ache that demands fulfillment, and there’s nothing to be done, because the gala is that afternoon and there’s barely time for lunch before practice.

They walk back to the rink hand in hand, fingers caressing palms, stoking the fire that smolders inside them both.

“So,” Yuuri says, when the rink is in sight. “Feet?”

Victor bites his lip and blushes intensely. “Um. Your feet, specifically?”

“Well. We’ve got two weeks together after this.” Yuuri glances over at Victor. “And, um. I’m up for anything that gives you that look in your eyes again.”

Victor squeezes Yuuri’s hand and looks upward. “Thank you, God.”

#

Yuuri doesn’t let what he is planning slip. At the open practice, he focuses on warming up (physically) and cooling down (sexually). He runs through portions from his old exhibition skate. He doesn’t need to practice what he’s actually going to do any longer—he memorized it through every late-night practice session.

He changes while Victor is talking to Yakov and covers the jacket he commissioned with his track suit. The pants are pretty generic; Victor probably won’t notice.

Probably.

He tries not to think about what he’s hiding as they take the ice for the gala warm up, but he’s lucky. Victor doesn’t notice.

When they announce his name, Yuuri turns to Victor at the edge of the rink.

“Watch me,” he says.

“Always.”

Yuuri shrugs off the jacket that covers the new blue jacket. He hears Victor gasp, but he’ll lose his nerve if he looks at him. Instead, Yuuri hands Celestino his glasses. The world turns to fuzzy outlines; he steps out onto the ice.

The crowd is deathly silent when the first notes play. Yuuri doesn’t know if they recognize Victor’s program the way he does. For him, it’s burned into his heart, lodged there through replay after replay. He’s spent half his evenings watching videos of Victor refine his choreography; the other half, he has spent on the ice, carefully trying to change Victor’s questions into answers.

He knows where every edge should fall. He knows the rise of the music and the fall of his heart. He knows every breath he needs to take.

Everything he loves about skating is in Victor’s free program. The wide, graceful, dramatic sweep across the ice—the drop to one knee, the lift of his hands above his head. He doesn’t mess around with any of the opening jumps: quad loop, quad flip, quad salchow, just as Victor performed it yesterday.

Even yesterday, Victor had skated questions—questions Yuuri knows he’s longed to have answered. _Will you stay with me? Will you care for me? Will you see me?_

Yuuri skates his response.

Yes, he says. Yes, I will ascend any height for you. Want me to win gold? I will.

He finishes with the quad toe, double toe combination that Victor didn’t quite manage. He wobbles slightly on the landing, but it doesn’t matter.

Victor asked him questions, and Yuuri wants to answer as publicly, as _loudly,_ as he possibly can.

_I will be by your side in every possible way—challenging you, helping you, loving you._

He’s afraid that some of his fears come out, too: _I want to stay with you, and you’re leaving in two weeks._

He ends with his arms thrown in the air. The roar of the crowd is intense—god, he can’t believe he skated that so perfectly, and holy crap—

Victor is on the ice, skating toward him.

It takes Yuuri a second to realize that Victor has changed his usual exhibition costume for something sparkling and crystalline, something that—god, without his glasses, he can’t quite make it out, but it almost looks like a silver version of…

Of…

Yuuri’s mind balks at the obvious answer, and before he has a chance to verify it, Victor skates up to him, taking his hands, sweeping him in circles across the ice.

“Hi.” Yuuri swallows. “Did you like my exhibition?”

“I loved it.” Victor leans in. “They’re going to say you skated it better than I ever did.”

“I—that wasn’t, I didn’t mean—”

“They’re going to be right,” Victor whispers in his ear. “But don’t worry. I’m taking it right back.”

Yuuri doesn’t know what to say to that, doesn’t know what that can possibly mean, but the officials are gesturing him off the ice and so he relinquishes his hold on Victor’s hands and skates away.

He finds his glasses, and is shrugging into his jacket, just as Victor comes to a halt at the center of the ice. Victor turns to Yuuri; he holds up his two hands in the shape of a heart.

“Idiot.” This comes from Yakov, who has come to stand by Yuuri.

Yuuri finds himself biting his lip in awe-struck anticipation.

He was right. Victor’s new costume—and yes, it is definitely a _new_ costume, because Yuuri has every outfit Victor has ever worn memorized—is a white-and-silver version of the stylized blue suit that Yuuri wears for his own free skate.

The music starts, and Yuuri’s heart stops. It’s…

It’s _his._ _His_ free skate. How. Why is Victor skating… What is…

It made sense for _Yuuri_ to skate Victor’s program. Yuuri has looked up to Victor forever. It makes none for Victor to skate his.

He asked Victor not to look away, and in return, he finds he can’t keep his eyes off his lover. It’s Yuuri’s free skate, but every element has been transformed into something…less Yuuri, more Victor.

When Victor skates it, it’s no longer about completion, no longer about Yuuri’s quest to meet Victor in that same perfect space at the top of the podium.

It’s Victor’s exultation at no longer being alone.

He can see _them—_ a _them_ he has never let himself imagine before—in the tentative, uncertain way they first came together. They’re present in the reckless way that Victor throws himself across the ice. It’s Victor himself, unfolding in a shower of radiant adoration. It’s Yuuri’s program redone until it’s no longer about the achievement of his dreams but the beginning of a journey together.

At the end, even though Yuuri can see Victor’s weariness, it’s almost as if he reaches deep inside himself, and somehow, _somehow—_ he lands that final quad flip, barely avoiding a touchdown.

Yuuri waits until Victor finishes and then—ignoring the official who tries to stop him—he pulls off his skate guards and hurls himself across the ice, launching toward the man he loves.

Victor catches him, spinning him around, laughing until they’re dizzy on the ice, surrounded by the sound of applause.

#

It is, in fact, true that the amateur judges score Yuuri skating Victor’s program. They analyze every edge, every last wobble. An entire forum argues over whether he should have a +1 or +2 GOE assigned to his final combination.

They claim that Yuuri would have beat not only Victor’s season best, but his best performance in any free skate _ever._

But they do the same thing to Victor—taking apart his version of Yuuri’s program. They go through every last spin, every last step on the ice. And here’s the thing: They also agree that Victor would have beat Yuuri, even in his final world-record breaking skate.

The only thing the internet can’t agree on is whether they would have beat each other in the exhibition skate.

Yuuri sets his phone down on the train, letting the forums disappear.

They’ve hardly had any time together. There were interviews, and after those, when he’d wanted to do nothing but take Victor back to his room and show him how he felt, they’d instead had to wrangle Victor’s twelve massive suitcases down to send them to Hasetsu through a luggage-forwarding service. (When Yuuri raised his eyebrows at the sheer volume of _stuff,_ Victor had protested. “But Yuuri, if I don’t look my best, how will people know I’m worthy of you? I have a high bar to meet!” which left Yuuri utterly baffled because he was _Victor Nikiforov_ ).

After that, the banquet started; they’d scarcely had time to say polite things to people who might give them money, and then they had had to slip out early—not to jump in bed, but to catch the last, late bullet train down to Kyushu.

Yuuri’s body still buzzes with the aftermath of his performance and a low-level horniness that has not gone away since the photoshoot, and here they are. In public. On a train.

And whatever stories claim about train bathrooms, there really is just no way, none, that they can or will handle their want that way.

Victor sets down his phone with a smile. “How are you?”

_Horny,_ Yuuri doesn’t say, but maybe Victor hears him anyway, because he winks at him. “It’s okay,” he says, a little too loudly. “You promised me a bed tonight, right?”

Yuuri, luckily, does not have to answer this, because a man enters their car pushing a food cart. Yuuri tries—painfully—to remember his diet, but it’s no good. Victor orders everything he has never heard of.

“You’ll split this with me, right?” Victor winks at Yuuri, as the man hands over a mound of plastic-wrapped goodies.

Yuuri splutters. “You have no idea how easily I gain weight. I can’t.”

“Yuuri, it’s the off season now, remember.”

“But—”

“Am I going to be your coach?” Victor fixes Yuuri with an intent stare. “If so, then I _order_ you to relax. Come on, what’s this?” He holds up a package.

_This_ is an eel pie. Yuuri translates the name and Victor looks utterly perplexed.

“It doesn’t look like an eel pie.”

“I _definitely_ can’t have those during training.”

Victor casts him a glance from behind silver strands of hair, and Yuuri feels his mouth dry. The look is distracting—it belongs, Yuuri thinks almost painfully, in a museum showcasing the most seductive looks of all time. “Split it with me? You can _always_ lick my eel.”

“Victor!” Yuuri blushes furiously and looks around the train car. Luckily, it’s relatively empty, but _still._ “We’re in public. And that was _terrible.”_

“Mmm. That’s not what you were saying last night.”

“Oh my god.” Yuuri stares down at the table. “Give it here, I’ll split it between us.”

“You’re cutting my eel in half?”

Yuuri makes a show of snapping the pastry in two, and Victor shakes his head sadly. “Savage.”

Yuuri hands him his portion. “We’re on a train. Eat your own eel.”

“Ah, Yuuri. I haven’t been that flexible since I was twelve.”

“Oh my _god,_ please don’t make me think of that.” His whole body is flaming. “It’s too hot.”

Victor just laughs softly. “So,” Victor says, as Yuuri’s surreptitiously brushing crumbs onto a paper napkin, “ _can_ I be your coach?”

Yuuri takes a while to push more crumbs around. “Um. Well.”

On the one hand, he loves the idea. Victor would be an extraordinary coach. Yuuri knows that he’s been skating incredibly well over the last months, and Victor is to thank for it.

He’s patient, he listens, and he never accepts less than Yuuri’s best. He’s a five time world champion, five time Grand Prix Final winner, an Olympic gold medalist… If Yuuri had no other considerations, he’d pick him in a heartbeat. But all those things give him pause, and for multiple reasons.

He looks over at Victor, who is watching him think.

“Let me think aloud,” Yuuri says cautiously. “Because I don’t want you to think I don’t want you. I want you as my, um, my…” He drops his voice, because they _are_ in public. “My everything.”

Victor blushes. After all these months, Yuuri still can’t quite believe that he can make Victor blush.

“But.” Yuuri swallows. “Um. This is me, so I have some things I’m worried about, and I wanted to see if we could talk it over?” He’s not used to the idea that he has to talk over his life decisions with someone else. He barely even talks about things with his parents or his sister, even though he knows the choices he makes will impact them.

“Okay, sure.” Victor smiles at him and takes a bite of his eel pie.

“So, um, first.” Yuuri gathers up his courage. “I, um. Can we talk about your coaching f—”

His tentative attempt to discuss finances is interrupted as Victor coughs and spits out his bite.

“Ack!”

“You don’t like it?”

“It’s—I don’t know if I like it! It’s sweet!” Victor says this, pointing at Yuuri like it’s an accusation. “I wasn’t expecting it to be sweet!”

“Yeah, it’s a dessert.” Yuuri looks down at the piece he’s holding.

“It’s an _eel pie.”_ Victor gestures at the crumbs. “I thought it would be full of eel!”

“Does it _look_ like it’s full of eel?” Yuuri makes a face. “It’s, um, more like…” His English dessert vocabulary escapes him. “Maybe a cookie?”

“Why would you call it an eel pie if it’s not made of eel?”

“Why would you call it a pie if it wasn’t sweet?”

“British people do it all the time!”

“Yes, but British food sucks.” Yuuri shrugs. “It’s like a moon pie. Do you expect a moon pie to be full of moon?”

Victor just stares at him. “What’s a moon pie?”

“Um.” Yuuri grimaces. “If you’re going to coach me, I think I probably shouldn’t answer that? I’d have to admit that I ate one, and, um. Yeah. Let’s…pretend that I never mentioned it.”

“Yuuri.” Victor leans toward him, narrowing his eyes. “If I’m going to be your coach, you have to tell me everything. None of this holding out on me.”

“If you’re going to be my coach,” Yuuri blurts out, “I’m going to have to pay you, and I don’t know if I can afford it.”

There’s a moment of silence. Victor’s brow furrows. He bites his lip.

“I mean,” Yuuri explains, “I was paying Celestino about…twenty thousand US dollars a year?” He winces, just remembering scrambling to make those fees. “And you’re, um, a more decorated skater, and a better coach for me, and, um… I don’t know what you’ll expect, but I’m sure it’ll be expensive. Even though I got silver at Worlds, I still have a lot of expenses, and I…don’t know where I’m going to be living.”

Victor winks at him. “You can have the special boyfriend rate.”

Yuuri feels a twitch of irritation. Not at Victor, not really.

But the _situation_ is annoying him, and Victor has never worried about money, and Yuuri doesn’t _want_ him to have to do it, but… No. No.

“I’m not going to pay you _less_ because you’re sleeping with me. I mean—” he feels his cheeks heat, but whatever, he might as well go for it “—if that’s going to have any effect on pricing at all, I should be paying you more, but I really don’t think either of us want to go there?”

Victor seems struck by this.

“If you’re thinking of being a _coach_ after you retire you can’t start off low-balling your rates. Because the next time you start negotiating, what are you going to say? ‘I spend a lot of time with Yuuri, but he’s barely paying me.’ You should be charging me _more_ than Celestino, not less.”

Victor stares at him for a moment. He licks his lips. “I should be charging less than Celestino,” he says, “for two reasons. First, you’re a world class skater and I am a brand-new coach, and you are giving me a chance when I’ve never coached anyone. If you do well under me, you will make me famous as a coach, not just a skater. You’re helping me build my coaching resume.”

_World class skater._ Yuuri doesn’t even know what to do with that description. He wants to argue it, but he doesn’t think it’ll go over well. _Yes,_ technically, he did just get a silver at worlds, but…that was…

Not actually an accident, since he won Four Continents before it and he broke Victor’s world record while doing it?

Victor interrupts this bit of self discovery with a touch to Yuuri’s hand. “Are you okay?”

“What the fuck,” Yuuri says in a daze. “I just realized I’m a world class skater.”

Victor stares at him in disbelief.

Yuuri looks down at his hands. “I mean, I guess it should have been obvious after Four Continents.”

“You made the Grand Prix Final,” Victor says. “Maybe it should have been obvious _then?”_

“I… It’s just…”

Victor stares at him a while longer, before nodding his head so slightly that it almost seems as if the gesture is meant for himself.

“Yuuri,” he says slowly, “when you were thinking about how to pay me, did you include sales from your posters?”

It takes Yuuri a moment to remember. That’s right; there is that poster they did, the one of just Yuuri. He remembers Victor saying that he would lose money if they sold less than a thousand-something copies, and he winces, because taking money if Victor is losing it feels like cheating, or maybe—worse—a form of charity.

He hadn’t really thought about his individual poster since the photoshoot, only dimly remembered, but… “No? But seriously, how much could that be?”

Victor exhales in frustration. “My project manager sent you a link. I know she did; I was cc-ed on the email! There’s a website where you can log in and see sales. It’s not completely accurate—it only counts sales from locations that have point-of-sale recording—”

“What?”

“—and our online direct sales, of course, and there’s about a week lag on the online reporting.”

“So I shouldn’t be too disappointed in the low numbers, is what you’re saying.”

Victor blinks twice before continuing, in a suspiciously mild tone of voice. “What I’m saying is we’re only the first day of sales. We don’t have numbers for any purchases after you broke my world record. Maybe you should look at that number before we talk finances? It’ll take two minutes.”

“In my defense,” Yuuri mutters, “I was busy graduating and breaking your world record.”

“Maybe,” Victor repeats, just as mildly, “you should go look _now.”_

Fine. With Victor looking on, his relatively mediocre sales are just going to be embarrassing, but Victor owns the company. It’s not like he doesn’t already know.

It takes Yuuri a moment to dredge up the email on his phone. Yes, there is a website, and yes, it has login information. He pulls up the site and finds a bewildering sea of numbers.

That, right there… What. What?

“Oh.” Yuuri feels baffled. “I guess some people…wanted it. That’s…just from presales?” He pulls his phone closer to his eyes, but the problem is not that his glasses have suddenly gone wonky. “I think there has to be an extra zero or something, because…that’s twelve thousand posters sold? That can’t be right.” There’s another number next to it, a projected royalty number, and Yuuri can’t even bring himself to say think it because it’s ridiculous.

“I should have realized it.” Victor smiles at him smugly. “I don’t know why you’re talking about paying _me_ money.”

Yuuri stared at him in confusion. “ _What?_ No. That can’t be right. You must be…paying me too much.”

“In the sense that I could have negotiated a substantially less favorable rate, yes.” Victor grins at Yuuri. “In the sense that I made more money than you, when you’re the one who’s that beautiful? No.”

It is _still_ weird to hear Victor call him beautiful.

“Plus, there’s our joint poster still to come.” Victor takes Yuuri’s hand. “And there’s the fact that I’m going to take my world record back from you, and you’re going to take it from me. And, you know, watching you do my free skate as an exhibition gave me an idea for a pairs ice dance we could do, and _that_ is going to be like printing money. I’ve already had a few people ask whether we’d appear together at some ice shows this off season, so there’s that to count in as well.”

“I just—that—” Yuuri blinks, utterly confused, and finally gives up on understanding. He picks up his own piece of unagi pie and takes a bite, even knowing that every bit of that sugary, rich cookie is going straight to his hips. He’s still baffled by the sheer size of the dollar amount that he just saw. It’s screamingly large, plus, plus, plus… Ice shows? More posters? Whatever he’s going to get from worlds? There are too many pluses and barely any minuses.

He is not used to money having more pluses than minuses. That’s not how money _works,_ that’s not how it _ever_ works. He has no idea how to process any of this.

He gives up and goes on to the next thing that’s been gnawing at his brain.

“I don’t want to take you away from the ice,” he whispers, “and I don’t know how to make it work. You’re going to be training in St. Petersburg, and…”

He trails off. Yuuri could go to St. Petersburg, too. He probably will. He’ll have a slice of spring and maybe summer to spend in Hasetsu, and then…

Victor just shrugs. “I mean, sure. But I was seriously considering quitting after the Grand Prix Final. You’re the only reason I’m here at all, so it’s fine if you take me away.”

His tone is so flippant that Yuuri is almost offended at how easily he’s talking about _Victor Nikiforov, Five-Time World Champion_ retiring. Yuuri glares at him.

Victor just pulls out a package of Tokyo Bananas. “Come on, Yuuri,” he says with a smile, “we’re on vacation. Can we hash out the details later?”

“Fine.” Yuuri sighs. “But I want the rum raisin Kit Kats.”

#

They have a hotel in Saga, where the train deposits them late that night. They’re not that far from home, and Yuuri’s mom had offered to pick them up at the station, but Yuuri hadn’t wanted to impose, not in the middle of busy season.

He’s also desperately aware that his mom would come in the family’s fourteen-year-old van, and…

Well. Yuuri had made the reservation for the hotel, planning to splurge by paying for it for both of them. He’d tried to pick something that Victor wouldn’t turn up his nose at. The hotel is staggeringly expensive by Yuuri’s hostel-trained standards—en suite bathroom, separate in-room dining area, all-wood interiors, beautifully lit with soft, indirect light. A round cypress soaking tub rests on a balcony overlooking the city.

They’re brought an array of tiny courses on tiny, brightly, colored bowls. Yuuri, onsen owner’s son, can immediately price the dishes out as Way Above Yu~topia Katsuki’s Usual Range.

He thinks of the restaurant Victor took him to, and…even this is probably beneath Victor’s standards.

There’s rice, tempura, soup, sukiyaki. Victor tries everything.

“Amazing! You have to try this.” He holds a piece of sukiyaki out to Yuuri on his chopsticks.

Yuuri tentatively takes a bite. The beef has been simmered into perfect tenderness, the flavors so carefully balanced. It melts in his mouth.

“I’ve never had anything so delicious,” Victor moans.

Beneath the delicate broth of Yuuri’s simmering anxiety, he finds himself smiling.

_Ha,_ he thinks. There’s one thing Hasetsu has over this place, balconies and all. Hasetsu has his mother and her cooking—and their pretty dishes won’t save them, not in a head-to-head. If Victor thinks _this_ is good…

Victor pauses on the other side of the table, chopsticks midway to his mouth. “What’s that smile?”

“I’m just…” Yuuri takes a deep breath. “I’m really happy you’re coming home with me.”

“Oh?”

“There’s a lot I want to show you.” He means that literally; Hasetsu is his home. He hasn’t been there in ages. He misses it…

Victor’s foot finds his under the table. “Mmm?”

They’ve been wrapped in heat and want ever since the photo shoot. Yuuri isn’t sure how they finish dinner. Mostly they don’t, rearranging the cushions until they’re eating practically in each other's laps, feeding each other bites with chopsticks, then spoons, then fingers, until—all too soon—there’s no need to even use food as an intermediary, and Yuuri is _on_ Victor, fingers in his mouth, tasting Victor like he’s the best dessert ever.

“I’m so tired,” Victor says after one long, searing kiss.

Yuuri pulls back. “It’s all right. You should sleep. I don’t mind.”

Victor hooks a finger through Yuuri’s belt loop and gives a yank, pulling him close. “That’s not what I meant,” he says. “ _Make_ me sleep well.”

They move to the futon, shedding clothing as they go. Yuuri can feel every ache from his exhibition skate; it’s enough to touch and lick, to kiss his way down Victor’s ribs, to feel Victor’s muscles tense as he swallows his cock whole.

“Oh, fuck.” Victor’s hands slide against Yuuri’s scalp. “Let me… There. Please, _please,_ God, I can’t last—yes, oh, God. Yuuri.”

_That,_ Yuuri thinks as Victor gasps and opens his eyes from an orgasm that has him him shaking. That’s another thing Yuuri can give him in Hasetsu.

“Tired?” He’s still hard and wanting.

Victor looks at him and smiles. “Not tired enough, if you’re doing most of the work.”

“Can I fuck your thighs?” Yuuri asks.

“Please.”

A little lube, and god, it’s so perfect, sliding between Victor’s muscled legs. He’s not _that_ kind of person, to only care about fame, but there’s something about this—about knowing that his cock is slipping between gold-medal winning thighs—that adds an extra charge to every thrust. He stares into Victor’s eyes—blue, full of tremulous hope and wants, and wants, and God, he wants, he _wants._

He comes hotly, perfectly.

They lie in a tangle of limbs, gasping for air.

“I don’t think I can get up.” Victor speaks first.

“We have to get up. We’re disgusting.”

“Mm.” Victor burrows his face in Yuuri’s neck. “On the contrary. You’re perfect.”

Yuuri feels himself flush. “Flattery won’t get you out of a shower. Besides, we can use the…” He’s tired enough that the western word slips his mind. “That…hinoki cypress thing waiting on the balcony?”

“The bath?”

“It’s good. You’ll see. Get up!”

“Mean,” is Victor’s only comment.

Yuuri will take it.

#

Yuuri has to explain how baths work to Victor.

“Wait,” Victor says in disbelief, “why do you _shower_ before you take a bath? Isn’t the whole point of a bath to get clean?”

Yuuri decides not to point out that Westerners didn’t even figure out the concept of not walking through their own sewage until halfway through the nineteenth century, and just goes with: “Cultural differences.”

Victor almost falls asleep in the bath, and Yuuri has to prod him into bed, where he collapses into immediate torpor.

Yuuri, by contrast, is so exhausted his mind won’t shut up. He’s glad they stayed in Saga an extra night; otherwise, he’d be showing Victor his first glimpses of Hasetsu right now, and…

He’s not embarrassed by where he came from. He’s _not_. And he knows Victor wouldn’t say anything about the cracked vinyl in his family car, or the carpet worn bare in the highly-trafficked areas of the onsen. He’s too nice to complain.

But Yuuri can’t help but think that Hasetsu at night is…not how he wants to introduce the love of his life to his hometown. What would he do? Point out all the dilapidated buildings?

“Here’s Hasetsu’s nightlife! It’s a bar, run by my former ballet teacher.” Yep, that is going to be exciting.

He has looked up St. Petersburg’s Wikipedia page far too many times to imagine that his slowly dying hometown could be anything but a charming, rustic diversion.

He can’t blame Victor for finding it lacking. And it’s not like Yuuri has any right to speak. He hasn’t been home in five years.

Somehow, though, his hometown’s slow senescence feels like a personal indictment. As if deep down, Yuuri’s failure is encoded in his childhood.

Except something is wrong about that.

Oh. Right.

He looks up at the hotel room ceiling, thinks about everything he has actually managed to accomplish.

Right. He’s not…actually a failure? There’s a silver medal stashed in his carry-on to prove it. He’s a world-class skater. And Victor loves him.

He falls asleep on that note.

#

“Wake up, Yuuri, wake up!”

Yuuri blinks himself blearily awake to a morning that he absolutely did not authorize.

“Wha…?”

“I just checked! If we pack _now,”_ Victor is saying, “we can catch the seven a.m. train to Hasetsu!”

Yuuri’s mind isn’t working. “Why would we do that when we could sleep and take the train at eleven?”

“Yuuri, Yuuri. I can’t sleep, I’m too excited.”

“It’s Hasetsu, not Disneyland.”

“But Yuuri,” Victor says, and even without his glasses, Yuuri is moved by Victor’s puppy-dog eyes. “I’ve never _been_ to Hasetsu. I want to see where you come from.”

Oh. Well.

Yuuri can’t get upset about that.

#

Yuuri tries to sleep on Victor’s shoulder the entire way there—except he’s interrupted approximately every three minutes.

“Yuuri, what’s that?”

“Yuuri, you didn’t tell me there were _mountains,_ I didn’t know you lived near mountains.”

“Yuuri, _DOG._ Oh, you missed it. You have to pay attention to these things!”

The closer they get to his home, the more anxious Yuuri becomes and the more sleep eludes him. He’d daydreamed when he first started dating Victor about bringing Victor to Hasetsu and showing him around. Knowing he was going to leave, and hoping he wouldn’t.

He knows now that Victor isn’t leaving _him_ anytime soon. But Yuuri hasn’t been home in five years, and with every passing kilometer, every building he recognizes in every tiny town, his heart hurts more. Nostalgic emotion is rising in his heart. He hasn’t let himself feel his homesickness all these years. There was no point.

But he’s coming home now. The closer he gets, the more his sheer desire to arrive hits him.

For Victor, this is a vacation. Yuuri could never ask him to make it anything more. It’s unreasonable to expect someone like Victor to grow heart-deep roots in a place like Hasetsu, no matter how excited he seems now about the visit.

There’s nothing to be done about the matter. Yuuri loves Victor; if that means that the location of his home changes, that he only visits Hasetsu every few years, watching it slowly die, there’s nothing to do about it.

Victor grips Yuuri’s hand excitedly. “One more stop, Yuuri!”

Yuuri smiles and runs his thumb across Victor’s ring finger. “Yeah,” he says softly. “Next stop.”

The last kilometers of the railway take them between hills crowned with almost-blooming cherry trees. A view of water glints briefly on the horizon, then the bay pops into view. Victor squeezes Yuuri’s hand harder.

He doesn’t let go, not even when the train stops. It makes it that much harder to wrangle their carry-ons onto the platform. But when Yuuri tries to guide Victor to the escalator, Victor resists. He stands in place, shuts his eyes, and inhales deeply.

“Victor?”

“Wait.” Victor tilts his face up. “My therapist told me to take the time to experience the things I’m excited for. I just want to feel this.”

Yuuri swallows.

“I can smell the sea.” Victor smiles. “Like St. Petersburg!”

Like St. Petersburg? Oh, will Victor ever be disappointed when he opens his eyes.

“There’s sun,” Victor says. “It’s warmer here than in Tokyo.” Then Victor opens his eyes. He doesn’t say anything about the tiny train station, about the vending machine hawking who-knows what at the side. His gaze focuses on something just behind them.

“Oh my god,” he says. “It’s you!”

Yuuri turns and finds himself wincing.

“Those posters!” Victor grins. “Oh my god, I’m going to _love_ it here!”

#

Victor introduces himself to Yuuri’s parents in very respectful, if somewhat mangled, Japanese. He further ingratiates himself (as if they weren’t already delighted by him) by offering them little gifts from Russia—vodka for Yuuri’s father, chocolate for his mother, vodka-filled chocolates for Mari—as if he’s known them all his life.

“Yuuri,” Mari says around a mouthful of alcoholic chocolate, “did _you_ bring us omiyage?”

“Uh.” Yuuri flushes. “I, uh. That’s. Um. I was busy graduating?”

“For five years.” She rolls her eyes affectionately. “Sure, I get it. Well, _he’s_ a keeper, at least. Don’t mess this up.”

It takes Yuuri’s mother a hot second to start affectionately referring to his boyfriend as _Vicchan._

“I didn’t know you spoke Japanese,” Yuuri says in confusion, after Victor distinctly tells his mother that the katsudon she serves for lunch is delicious.

“Only a little,” Victor says. “I’ve been trying to learn. I wanted to make a good first impression on your parents.”

Yuuri shakes his head. “It’s hardly a _first_ impression. They’ve been watching you on TV since you were sixteen.”

“Yeah,” Mari calls from across the room. “You should see Yuuri’s poster collection.”

Victor perks up. “Posters? I _should.”_

They don’t end up leaving Yuuri’s room until dinner.

#

Showing Victor around Hasetsu isn’t anything like showing a tourist around. For one, Victor attracts a sizable crowd. (“They’re here for you, too, Yuuri,” Victor murmurs, when Yuuri expresses dismay, and it takes Yuuri a little while to realize that yes, this is apparently true—they appear to think very highly of him? They ask him for autographs, and they’re not _all_ just trying to be being polite.

He realizes the latter when a man who has to be ten years older than him starts _crying_ when Yuuri politely scrawls “thank you for your support” on one of the Victor-produced posters and repeatedly, profusely thanks Yuuri for his kindness.)

But Victor’s different for another reason, too: Tourists never care. If they start conversations with the store clerk at the konbini, it’s usually all about the town—where to eat, what to see, what’s the best time to walk on the beach, tell me about the onsen, what if I don’t _want_ to go naked, can I wear clothes?

Victor uses his terrible Japanese to ask about the _clerk._ How long have you lived here? Do you like it? Is it always this warm at this time of year? What is it like living in Hasetsu? Hm, why did your brother move away? Does he like Tokyo?

No Japanese person would be so nosy, but Victor’s so friendly about it that soon the whole town is talking about Yuuri’s nice, talkative foreign boyfriend.

“Really,” he hears the shopkeeper tell the florist next door, as Yuuri’s picking out cans of iced coffee for the two of them from the fridge in the back, “it’s nice having him here. He does talk a lot, but this way we’re actually getting news about Yuuri.”

Victor compliments every dog he sees in Hasetsu in his terrible Japanese. Yuuri sees him poring over his phone dictionary trying to find the right words for every dog. “Beautiful dog.” “Cute dog.” “Those eyes! Your dog is smart!”

And then there are the ubiquitous questions: “How old is your dog? Does she like treats? Can I give her this? Is it okay if I pet her?”

He hugs an old mutt with a bad case of mange, cuddling it close, before looking up at the befuddled owner and offering up this gem: “Nice paws, lots of wisdom!”

Yuuri is still not sure if that is what Victor intended to say. Probably. It sounds like something he would say in English, too.

Victor donates several hundred posters to the Hasetsu Town Council. Victor leaves reviews (helpfully translated into French, English, Russian, and his very bad, entirely romaji-written and therefore unintelligible Japanese) for all the restaurants in town on every tourist review site, making mention of his favorite foods at each place. Victor instagrams himself at Hasetsu Castle. Victor snapchats Yuuri skating at the Ice Castle. The town counsel sends him thank you cards.

When they skate, Yuuri discovers that Victor is apparently already friends with Yuuko, and he’s talked to her girls. At length.

(“Of course I am!” he says with a grin when Yuuri expresses surprise. “How else would we have set up the ice show we’re doing next week?”

Yuuri just blinks. “The what we’re what?”

“Oh, right.” Victor laughs. “Yuuko said not to tell you until after worlds because you were going to worry too much. Now I’m telling you!”)

#

The sixth day they’re there, they go to the beach and watch clouds go by. Victor turns to see Yuuri looking at him. It’s not the first time Yuuri has stared at him wistfully since they arrived. It’s not even the first time he’s been caught.

But it is the first time Victor reaches out and takes Yuuri’s hand. “Is everything okay?”

It’s great. It’s wonderful. It’s never been better. All those things are true, and yet…

“I love having you here.” Yuuri’s voice is quiet.

“What is it?”

“Nothing.” Yuuri looks away. Nothing he wants to even admit to himself.

“Nothing?”

“Nothing,” Yuuri says, even though it’s a lie. “I’ve just… I haven’t been home in a while, and it’s nice. It’ll be a while before I come back. That’s all.”

“Mmm.” Victor takes this in, tilting his head back to watch the sky. “Why? Now that you’ve finished your degree, you’ll have more time. And if it’s money… You really should look at presales for our joint poster, you know.”

Yuuri shuts his eyes. He did, actually, and it’s too much. He could afford to come home whenever he wanted. If he had the time.

“It’s just, you’re going to coach me, remember?” Yuuri makes himself smile. It’s not hard, when he can look at Victor as he does it. Victor makes it all worthwhile. “I’m going to move to St. Petersburg.”

He’ll learn Russian. That place will become their home. Yuuri’s fine with it; he really is. It means he gets Victor.

“It’s nothing,” he says, with another smile. “It’s nothing if I have you.”

And he shuts his eyes. Pursuing competitive skating has always meant sacrifices; his home is one that he gave up years ago. He just hasn’t been honest with himself about it. Home is a country he’s had to relinquish. He’ll have to discover it again somewhere else.

Hasetsu isn’t home anymore. From here on out—if he’s honest with himself—he’s going to be a tourist here, too.

#

He still can’t help hoping, even though he knows he shouldn’t. He knows how things will go. But Victor isn’t a tourist, not in the usual sense of the word. He’s the one who grabs Yuuri’s arm and takes him down an alley, just so he can get the perfect view of the sunrise through the cherry blossoms. He makes Yuuri take him to the high school he once attended, asks him how classes work…

“It’s your home,” Victor says with a laugh. “I want to know everything about it!”

It’s exactly what Yuuri has wanted. It’s nothing like Yuuri expected.

#

Yuuri wakes up ten days into their stay to discover that Victor is not in bed.

Victor is usually not in bed when he wakes up; Victor is a morning person. Yuuri stirs under his covers, not wanting to get up and wanting to go find Victor simultaneously. They don’t have that long together anymore—Victor had told him originally that he could take a few weeks off, and there’s an ice show coming up in a few days. After that…

They’re going to have to make decisions. He might as well leave sooner rather than later. He’s already been mentally packing in his mind.

He gets up, goes down stairs—

“What the heck,” he says, looking out the front windows of the onsen.

It’s April now. The drifts of snow are entirely out of place, weighing down branches that yesterday were fragrant with blooms. He’d watched the weather with Victor last night, and he distinctly remembers planning an afternoon watching new cherry blossoms together.

“I’m bringing something special,” Victor promised with a wink. So much for that.

“There you are,” his mother says, appearing at his elbow. “Would you mind clearing the front path?”

It takes Yuuri a while to find his winter jacket and gloves, and even longer to find the onsen’s sole snow shovel, buried beneath rakes and brooms in a distant closet.

He opens the door to see Victor, bundled in coat and scarf, out on the street. He’s talking to a man in a car. As Yuuri watches, Victor looks up and down the street, both ways, so conspicuously, brazenly shifty that he looks like he’s playing a spy in a movie. Then he opens his wallet and takes out what is definitely a giant wad of cash.

What the _heck._ The first thing that comes to Yuuri’s mind is that it looks like a drug deal, but that’s ridiculous. Even if Victor were the type to do drugs—and he’s so serious about skating that Yuuri knows he never would—he knows as well as Yuuri that drug tests are random and can be triggered at any time, even during the off season. Also, that giant wad is _too much money,_ even for designer drugs.

His question is answered a few seconds later, when the man opens the back door of the car.

_Bark._ _Bark!_ A giant brown poodle jumps out, tackling Victor. Victor laughs.

“Oh,” Yuuri says in confusion. “Makkachin?”

He isn’t talking loudly, but Makkachin, with a dog’s hearing, looks up and sees Yuuri. Her ears perk and she dashes to him, tail wagging madly. Before Yuuri has a chance to understand what’s happening, the dog has jumped on him and is licking his face.

“Hey, Makkachin!” Victor looks utterly pleased, walking up the path. Not that Yuuri can see him as anything other than a blur, with his glasses smeared with dog saliva. “Hey, you know the rules! Don’t knock people over!”

Makkachin gives Yuuri’s face another swipe before backing off and giving him a play bow, so much like Vicchan that Yuuri feels something in his heart melt. _Throw me a ball, throw me a ball!_

“Victor,” Yuuri says, leaning down and scooping up a handful of snow, “how on _earth_ did you get Makkachin into the country? I know how strict Japan is on their quarantine laws.”

“Mmm.”

Yuuri throws his snow ball, and Makkachin chases it excitedly, bursting into a snow drift, and then shaking off the white flakes happily, before gamboling back to Victor, barking happily.

Victor looks entirely too satisfied. “I just asked the right people very nicely.”

“Did that asking involve a huge quantity of money?”

“Not _huge,”_ Victor says carefully, but since he apparently thinks that thirty thousand dollars is not that much, Yuuri doesn’t exactly trust him.

“Isn’t it going to be hard on her, just being here for…a little longer?”

Yuuri trails off, because Victor’s smile flickers uncertainly.

“Yeah.” Victor exhales. “So. I…maybe should have asked you this before. But…”

Yuuri feels his heart stutter.

“I like it here,” Victor says simply. “I need a change of pace, and—you know, when we were working together via Skype, I realized that if I could do it with you, Yakov could do it with me. Ice Castle has plenty of free time on their schedule. I already asked Yuuko. And Yuri Plisetsky will come out in a few weeks so I can choreograph a program for him. And…you told me that you missed being home, so…”

Yuuri exhales. He hadn’t realized how much he wanted to stay until the option opened up to him. He feels stunned by hope.

“Yuuri?” Victor looks at him. “Are you okay?”

He doesn’t know what to say. He’s okay. He’s _more_ than okay.

“I had thought I could stay here, if you wouldn’t mind?”

_Yes,_ Yuuri thinks, imagining waking up with Victor. Going to the onsen with Victor. Walking home with Victor after a long day of practice, holding his hand, going to the beach with Victor in the summer. _Definitely yes._

“Or…I could get an apartment here if you’re not comfortable with that?” Victor offers, sounding a little desperate. “Yuuri, talk to me.”

“I…” He swallows. “That’s…”

“I’m skipping steps,” Victor says, pulling back. “Let me ask. Yuuri, how do feel about living here with your boyfriend in Hasetsu for the next year?”

Yuuri’s head is an utter mess, but one thing is clear, even though Yuuri is pretty sure it shouldn’t be.

“No,” Yuuri hears himself say. “No, I don’t want to live with my boyfriend in Hasetsu.”

Victor’s face falls—just a fraction before he hides it in a fake, fake smile. He hides his grimace by biting his lip. “Sure. Um. That’s…fine.”

“I want to live with my fiancé in Hasetsu,” Yuuri hears himself say, and oh god, he’s such an idiot, _such_ an idiot, why did he say it like that? Why did he say it at all? There had been that joke about marrying that Victor had made at the interview, but he hadn’t mentioned it since, and so obviously it was a joke.

Is Yuuri _trying_ to lose everything through clinginess? They’ve been dating for four months, and it’s too fast, _far_ too fast, who _does_ that after four months?

Victor’s eyes widen.

Yuuri swallows. “I mean, it’s nothing! I can live with my boyfriend instead. I shouldn’t have—I know you didn’t mean it at the interview, not like that—it’s ridiculous, I don’t know why that just slipped out—”

Victor takes a step forward. “Yuuri, are you asking me to marry you?”

“Um.” Yuuri feels very far away. “…No?” It definitely comes out as a question.

He looks up into Victor’s eyes and feels his heart stop beating. Victor’s watching him with an intent expression, eyes wide.

“That would be…weird and definitely too soon and irrational and, um.” He swallows again. “Maybe you already asked me? But…also, I’ve been thinking that you would look really good with a golden ring, and if we were actually engaged maybe I could buy matching rings and just, you know, give you one? For good luck in our skating next year?”

“Yes!” Victor crashes into him wrapping his arms around him. “Yes. My answer is yes.”

“You don’t think it’s…” Yuuri swallows and tries to gets his thoughts in order, because he’s fairly certain that he just stupidly asked his boyfriend to marry him and he’s just as stupidly certain that his boyfriend said yes. “You don’t think it’s too soon? Stupid? Clingy? I mean, we haven’t even lived with each other yet, and, um…”

Victor just beams at Yuuri, his face mere millimeters away. “Of _course_ it’s too soon. That’s why _I_ didn’t want to bring it up again.”

Yuuri takes a step back; he feels his back hit the hotel door behind him.

“Oh?” He tilts his head back.

“But, um, when I called Vasya for advice when I came out for Four Continents?”

“Oh?” Yuuri holds his breath, wondering if he’s finally going to hear what passes for advice from Victor’s sister.

“She said, um. ‘What is it they say? Maybe he’s not that into you.’”

A scandalized noise escapes Yuuri’s mouth. “I…that’s… No. Obviously. She was wrong.”

“And I said, ‘Well, then, it’s going to make for a really awkward wedding.’” Victor sighs. “So this is perfect. We’ll call them engagement rings.”

“Um.” Yuuri glances at the snow shovel in his hand. “Okay.”

“Can we get rings today?” Victor grins at him. “I want to get rings today.”

#

_Three years later_

“Hey, Yuuri. Yuuri, wake up.” Yuuri jolts to wakefulness from something that is not quite sleep, and definitely not restful, to discover that Victor has set a cup of something hot in front of him. He blinks in confusion, his eyes focusing first on the ring on his husband’s finger.

_Oh._

It shouldn’t be a surprise, not anymore, not after they’ve been married for two years, not after he’s spent the last years listening to his husband (oh my god, he thinks to himself, Victor is his _husband)_ reminding reporters that he’s Victor _Katsuki-Nikiforov,_ thank you very much, because did they remember him getting married to Yuuri Katsuki-Nikiforov? It was a lovely wedding, and here are the pictures, have they seen how beautiful his husband is?

It’s not a surprise anymore, not in the sense that he ever forgets that he is married.

It’s a surprise, though, in the sense that every time he sees the proof of his husband’s devotion, he’s filled with a sense of awe and wonder and disbelief, that somehow _he_ got to marry Victor. That he gets to know the side of Victor who rarely comes out in interviews, the Victor with the dorky sense of humor, the Victor who built a ramp with his own two hands so that Makkachin could get on their bed when her hips started hurting.

“Vitya?” Yuuri blinks. He reaches a hand out to try to find his glasses—where—last night, he was on his phone—dammit—

Victor puts them in his palm. “Come on, Yuuri, we’re late, we’re _late.”_

“Mmm.” Yuuri reaches for the cardboard cup and sniffs gingerly. Victor went to the new tea-shop in Hasetsu, he thinks. Because now that they _live_ here full-time, after a year here, a year in St. Petersburg, and a year careening back and forth, there’s apparently a new tea shop. And a new wine shop. And…

And this smells like ginger, which means Victor got one of those flavored teas.

Yuuri takes a sip. It’s not bad, for flavored tea.

“Come on,” Victor says impatiently, “we have an appointment, we don’t want to be late, what on earth are they ever going to think of us?”

They’re going to think, Yuuri suspects, that between them, they have three Olympic gold medals, eight world championships, and all the world records. They’re going to think that Yuuri is not a morning person. That’s just the truth. He yawns and stretches.

“I picked out clothing for you,” Victor says, vibrating with an almost desperate energy. “Come _on,_ Yuuri, we have to make a good impression.”

“A tie?” Yuuri frowns dubiously. “Isn’t that one of yours? If I have to wear a tie, what’s wrong with one of mine?”

He has his glasses on; he can see the shifty look that passes over Victor’s face.

“Oh, ha, nothing,” Victor says, in the tone of voice that implies—Yuuri knows this now, after their years together—that everything is wrong with Yuuri’s ties. “I just think this one would look nice today?”

There’s a time to give in, and a time to be stubborn. Yuuri stands up, stretches—oh, that muscle, _there,_ he must have strained it a little in practice yesterday and he didn’t notice. Victor holds out the collared shirt and tie expectantly.

Yuuri takes a sweatshirt from his drawer.

The noise out of Victor’s mouth is so pitiful that if Makkachin had ever made it, Yuuri would have burst into tears and given her anything and everything she wanted, including one of those steamed buns that she keeps trying to steal.

Yuuri ignores it.

“ _Yuuri.”_ Victor is almost whining. “Yuuri, they’re going to think we’re _barbarians._ Do you want them to think we’re barbarians?”

Yuuri finds a pair of socks. They match, so he’s not sure why Victor whines when he puts them on.

“Victor,” he finally says, “I am not going to go look at puppies wearing a tie. At best, it’ll get slobbered on. At worst, it’s going to get chewed.”

“But _Yuuri,_ this is the first time we’re going to meet _our_ puppy, our first puppy together. Don’t you want to make a good first impression?”

“ _Makkachin_ is our puppy.”

“Okay, yes, but—you know what I mean. There’s an _actual_ baby dog who is going to meet us today. Do you want them to think we’re unsophisticated?”

Yuuri yawns and heads to the bathroom. His hair is sticking up every which way. “Truth in advertising,” he calls, and Victor whines again.

#

In the end, Victor wears a tie; Yuuri goes in his sweatshirt.

Victor picked out the breeder through extensive research. “You can’t just get poodles from anyone,” he had explained, and had gone on a tirade about interbreeding and genetic scans and birth environment and how at the age of just ten weeks, little puppies are already past the point of full socialization because what if they got a puppy who had never encountered sand before? Or people in hats? Or people on skates?

They’ve been together long enough that Yuuri recognizes all of this for what it is—Victor is nervous, and he wants Yuuri to comfort him.

They pull up in front of the house. Victor looks down at his jacket and tie, and then at Yuuri’s sweatshirt and comfortable sneakers. He sighs.

“I promise you, Victor, our puppy will love you no matter what you’re wearing. Puppies are easy. Just feed them a little chicken, don’t yell when they chew your stuff, and it all works out. And we’re not taking one _home_ today; they’re only six and a half weeks old. We’re just picking ours out.”

“Are you calling our puppy _easy?”_ Victor says.

“No,” Yuuri says. “It’s going to be a lot harder for you. You’re the one with the expensive shoes.”

“Yuuri!”

Yuuri looks over at Victor, and casts him a grin. “Come on,” he says. “Let’s go meet them.”

There are six dogs in the litter. Two are already spoken for—breeding dogs that are going to other kennels. The other four are little wiggly masses that look a lot like chubby brown hamsters. Yuuri does not tell Victor this, partially because he’s certain that Victor would not hear.

Victor sinks down on his knees, holding out his arms. “Puppies!” He speaks in a reverent tone.

He is mobbed. All six of them want to say hi to Victor. They sniff him, then clamber atop him with uncertain puppy paws. Their eyes are no longer the steel-blue from the first photos; they’re now varying shades of warm brown.

When they figure out that Victor brought treats, appropriate for dogs that are not completely weaned, they jostle around him, climbing him, demanding little bits of the dehydrated chicken.

“There’s enough for everyone!” Victor says laughing. “Don’t crowd, it’s okay!”

The little pups do not listen—all but one, who stands at Victor’s knee, surveying his brothers and sisters with a tilted head. Every so often, that dog places a gentle paw on Victor’s knee, and Victor, innately fair and unable to neglect any dog ever, makes sure to reward him, too.

After a while, the dogs wear themselves out. They collapse in little brown heaps, sides heaving, sleeping as if they are dead.

“Well,” says Mrs. Sakamoto. “Have you decided?”

“Yes,” Victor and Yuuri say at the same time. They haven’t talked about it at all.

“That one,” they both say at the same time, pointing to the same dog—the little one who stood to the side. “That’s our dog.”

“Oh,” Mrs. Sakamoto says, with a sad smile. “Pon-chan. My favorite. I wish I could keep him!”

They agree with her that Pon-chan is definitely the sweetest and the cutest and the smartest, and that they’ll be back for her next week.

When they’re halfway home. “Yuuri. Am I too high maintenance?”

“No,” Yuuri says, learning over and kissing him on the cheek as best as he can without causing a wreck. “Not even a little.”

Victor ducks his head; they drive for a little while longer.

The cherry trees have dropped their blossoms. Victor and Yuuri have experienced every season here by this point. Yuuri thinks about the dog they’ve shared these last three years. The days they’ve spent on the ice. The case of medals they both contribute to.

He thinks about the future, the puppy that will come home, and the fact that apparently, sometimes _Victor Nikiforov_ wonders if he’s good enough for Yuuri.

He leans over and kisses his husband again.

“You’re just the right amount of maintenance,” he says, and it will never stop being true.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi. So if you’re here, you have been on a really long journey with me. I had no idea this story would end up being so long, or going to the places it ended up going. I only had a tiny inkling of what would happen, even though I thought I had a solid draft.
> 
> Thank you all so much for taking the time to read this. It has meant a lot to me to create, and I hope you’ve enjoyed it. Writing this has meant a lot to me, and I hope it’s helped me be a better person.
> 
> I have other things in the works—a sequel-ish thing to my space opera that I have planned out and oh my, I’m excited about it, and another fic that I feel really strongly about that is slightly fantasy, but is also...weirdly canon compliant? Come ask me about them on tumblr. 
> 
> I’m sorry I fell behind on comments. I’m going to catch up and I love all of them, and you. Life just kind of fell on my head. Not in a bad way; in a pretty decent way.

**Author's Note:**

> You can follow me on Tumblr where I am [@shysweetthing](https://shysweetthing.tumblr.com). I'm not actually shy, sweet, or a thing, but nobody's called me on it yet. I post little snippets and do WIP word-guessing games and rant about Victor and Yuuri and finances and dogs and ~~other fine things~~ terrible guessing games.


End file.
